This year’s, 12th in a row traditional Dubrovnik Forum was held 1 June 2017 under the title “Adriatic-Mediterranean Cooperation and Southeast European Security”. The focus of this year’s Forum was on the Adriatic-Mediterranean Area, a strategically important meeting point between the Middle East, North Africa and Europe requiring a common response to the security and stability challenges in the Mediterranean and neighbouring areas through the strengthening of cooperation and fostering dialogue, while at the same time addressing the opportunities for concrete and future actions.
The Forum also dealt with developing business opportunities in the Adriatic and the Eastern Mediterranean region, as well as on intercultural dialogue, with an emphasis youth’s mobility and education.
Dubrovnik Forum 2017 was opened by Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, with keynote addresses delivered by Parliament Speaker Gordan Jandroković as well as the presidents of Montenegro, Kosovo and Macedonia – Filip Vujanović, Hashim Thaci and Gjorge Ivanov.
The working part of the Forum entailed a roundtable and two panel discussions.
The roundtable on “Peace, Security and Stability” defined the Adriatic-Mediterranean Area as a geographic meeting point and crossroads of the Middle East, North Africa and Europe. This area of multifaceted challenges requires much more cooperation in the political, security and economic sense. Three priority areas of common action were defined:
1) Peace, security and stability: conflict management, resilience, migration, demographics, terrorism, extremism, radicalization;
2) Economy, connectivity and the environment: sustainable development, business opportunities, energy, ecology, water, maritime security, transport;
3) Intercultural and interreligious dialogue, youth, education: personal contact, cultural diplomacy, strengthening the role of youth, mobility.
The roundtable provided an in-depth reflection on the security threats and challenges, as well as finding a coordinated and common response, in particular with regard to conflicts, migration, terrorism, radicalization.
The Forum continued with two simultaneous panel discussions:
1) “Economy, Connectivity and the Environment: Developing Business Opportunities in the Eastern-Mediterranean”, which discussed prospects of enhancing the existing and developing new sea, land and air connections as a precondition for increasing economic exchange. The Adriatic-Mediterranean and Southeast European areas bear untapped potential for developing new sea, land and air connections, which could further facilitate trade and tourism as well as improve the communication between states and people. The participants also discussed the planned land traffic corridors and the need to test further possibilities in environmental protection, maritime security and energy.
2) “Intercultural Dialogue, Education and Youth” underlined that wellbeing and human development should be at the core of our actions and that the values of peace and tolerance should be promoted through intercultural and interfaith dialogue, bringing together people from various regions and environments, overcoming cultural and political divisions and enhancing mutual understanding. Youth is our future, so the Forum focused on the ways to expand opportunities for young people through education, academic mobility, employment and entrepreneurship. Investing in youth is investing in security and prosperity, was the panel’s motto.
Conclusively, this year’s Dubrovnik Forum sent a strong message of commitment to the strengthening of unity between the Adriatic and Mediterranean countries in finding quality responses to various modern-day challenges and passing policies that stimulate economic growth and bring stability to this geopolitically extremely important part of the world.
Ahead of Dubrovnik Forum 2017, meeting of the Southeast European Cooperation Process (SEECP) was held, hosted by Croatian President Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović, which marked the end of Croatia’s one-year SEECP chairmanship. A declaration was adopted at the summit, which saw the participation of presidents of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo, Macedonia, Slovenia and Serbia, Bulgaria’s prime minister, as well as High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice-President of the European Commission Federica Mogherini.
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