Skopje, 13 September 2023 (MIA) — Deputy Prime Minister for European Affairs Bojan Marichikj will take part in an international conference in Athens, Greece, on the topic of EU enlargement in the Western Balkans. He will also meet with Greek Minister of Foreign Affairs Giorgos Gerapetritis, according to MIA's Athens correspondent.

Gerapetritis will open "The EU-accession perspectives of the Western Balkans in light of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine” conference, which is organized by the ELIAMEP Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy in cooperation with the Wilfried Martens Center for European Studies and the Hanns-Seidel Stiftung.

Marichikj will speak at a panel titled "A new momentum for enlargement: How can the Western Balkans not miss the opportunity?" together with Miroslav Gacevic, Serbian Assistant Minister at the Department for Political and Economic Criteria in the Process of Accession to the European Union; Odeta Barbullushi, Albania's Advisor to the Prime Minister and National Coordinator for Regional Economic Area; Jovana Marovic, former Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of European Affairs of Montenegro; and Srdjan Majstorovic, Serbia's European Policy Center chairman. The panel will be moderated by European Policy Institute director Simonida Kacarska.

The conference will consist of a series of panels gathering a number of government officials and experts from the Western Balkan countries and the EU to exchange views on the current challenges and perspectives for EU enlargement in the shadow of Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The event is one in a series of events that Greece's leading foreign policy think tank ELIAMEP is organizing ahead of the Civil Society and Think-Tank Forum, which will take place in October in Tirana. The forum is part of the Berlin Process, an EU supported intergovernmental initiative to promote the European perspectives of the Western Balkans. mr/