Foreign and European Affairs Minister Vesna Pusić is attending a conference of Southeast European foreign ministers on 5 November in Berlin, at the invitation of German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his British counterpart Phillip Hammond.
The conference, apart from the region’s FMs (Albania’s Ditmir Bushati, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Zlatko Lagumdžija, Kosovo’s Enver Hoxaj, Macedonia’s Nikola Ioposkoi, Montenegro’s Igor Lukšić and Serbia’s Ivica Dačić), is also gathering officials from the EU, NATO and the US. The main topic of the Berlin gathering is the accession of EU aspirants. The conference is preceded by a business panel discussion on that aspect of the region’s development.
The first conference of Southeast European countries' foreign ministers was organised by the Aspen Institute in December 2008.
The Berlin conference is part of the intensified talks on the region, its European prospects and ways to realize that future. Brining the Western Balkans back on the EU agenda began with Croatia’s initiative in Brussels this February and the adoption of conclusions regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina at the April’s Foreign Affairs Council, given that stable and safe surroundings are Croatia’s permanent national and state interest. Croatia’s foreign policy has placed the region high on the priority list, whereby it was also important to ensure support from the European partners, which we have succeeded in. As part of the region, as well as the Central Europe and the Mediterranean, Croatia is interested in and responsible for the region’s stability.