Tuesday, November 06, 2007

The Belgrade Fund for Political Excellence hosted a conference of the Council of Europe’s Schools of Political Studies on 3 November as part of the Serbian chairmanship of the Committee of Ministers and with the support of the Finnish government.
The conference, which focused on co-operation in the Balkans and in the Black Sea Region, brought together nearly 100 participants from the 16 Schools of Political Studies in Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Georgia, "the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia", Moldova, Montenegro, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Kosovo/UNMIK and Ukraine.
The conference was be open by Vuk Jeremic, Serbian Foreign Minister and current Chairman of the Council of Europe’s Committee of Ministers, and Kari Veijalainen, the Finnish ambassador in Belgrade.
On 4 November there was a meeting of School Directors in order to prepare the Summer University for Democracy which will be held in Strasbourg from 30 June to 4 July 2008.

Press contact:

Ulvi Akhundlu, Press officer, Tel: + 33 (0) 3 88 41 26 38 ; Ulvi.Akhundlu@coe.int
Special file on the Schools of Political Studies: www.coe.int/Schools-Politics
Council of Europe Press Division
Tel: +33 (0)3 88 41 25 60
Fax:+33 (0)3 88 41 39 11
pressunit@coe.int