On the initiative of the Mr. Harald Dossi, Secretary General of the Austrian Parliament, a panel discussion was organised in partnership with the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group.
The event "The Western Balkans in Focus: Hopes, Setbacks, New Perspectives and the Effects of the Ukraine War on the Region" was held on March 30, 2022, at 6:00 p.m.
The Secretary General of the Austrian Parliament, Mr. Harald Dossi presented his opening remarks, and the keynote addressing was given by Florian Bieber, BiEPAG's Coordinator and Head of the Centre for Southeast European Studies at the University of Graz, and Damir Kapidžić, BiEPAG's Member and Associate Professor of Comparative Politics at the University of Sarajevo.
The discussion also included representative of the bilateral parliamentary groups of Austria and the countries of the Western Balkans - Ewa Ernst-Dziedzic (Greens), Chairwoman of the Bilateral Parliamentary Group Austria-Albania, Bedrana Ribo (Greens), Chairwoman of the Bilateral Parliamentary Group Austria-Bosnia-Herzegovina, Carmen Jeitler-Cincelli (Austrian People’s Party), Chairwoman of the Bilateral Parliamentary Group Austria-Kosovo, Gudrun Kugler (Austrian People’s Party), Chairwoman of the Bilateral Parliamentary Group Austria-Serbia as well as Eva Blimlinger (Greens) from the Bilateral Parliamentary Group Austria-Montenegro, and Christian Buchmann (Austrian People’s Party) from the Bilateral Parliamentary Group Parliamentary Group Austria-North Macedonia.
The event was moderated by Florian Bieber and Aleksandra Tomanić, Executive Director of the European Fund for the Balkans. The closing remarks were given by Mr. Wolfgang Sobotka, President of the National Council.
The discussion was in German, and it was streamed live. The footage is available at the following link
