Staffers Exchange Program

The Aspen Institute Germany has focused on developments in Southeast Europe since the early 1990s. In cooperation with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Aspen’s former Executive Director David Anderson initiated the International Commission on the Balkans in 1995 under the leadership of former Belgian Prime Minister Leo Tindemans, which published the report “Unfi nished Peace” in 1996, an analysis of the causes of the Balkan confl icts and an independent assessment of the European, American, and UN responses. Since 2008, one of the Policy Program’s main focuses has again been on the Western Balkans, which includes the countries of former Yugoslavia and Albania. In closed-door meetings, the Aspen Institute Germany facilitates an open and honest high-level exchange between former confl ict parties in order to support regional cooperation and dialog, as well as to further the region’s agenda on Euro-Atlantic integration and the transformation processes this entails. In pursuit of these goals, the Aspen Institute Germany’s Southeast Europe Program has diff erent formats: the Aspen Southeast Europe Foreign Ministers’ Conferences, the so-called Sub-cabinet Meetings, it facilitates small, off -the-record exchanges, and background briefi ngs and discussions.

Aspen Southeast Europe Foreign Ministers’ Conferences

The first Aspen Southeast Europe Foreign Ministers’ Conference took place in December 2008. Behind closed doors, top politicians and senior offi cials from Germany and the U.S. met with foreign ministers from Southeast Europe including, for the fi rst time, the Serbian Foreign Minister and the Acting Foreign Minister from Kosovo. In subsequent years, Foreign Ministers from the region have gathered annually in Berlin for a regional meeting together with their U.S., European, and German colleagues. Since 2010, Aspen’s Southeast Europe Foreign Ministers’ Conferences have been organized in cooperation with the German Foreign Offi ce and an EU member state’s Embassy in Berlin with the German Foreign Minister. Since 2010, partners have included the Austrian Embassy in Berlin and Foreign Ministers Dr. Guido Westerwelle and Dr. Michael Spindelegger; the Hungarian Embassy in Berlin and then Foreign Ministers Dr. Guido Westerwelle and Dr. János Martonyi; the British Embassy and then Foreign Ministers Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Philip Hammond; the Italian Embassy and then Foreign Ministers Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Paolo Gentiloni; as well as the Czech Embassy and Foreign Ministers Sigmar Gabriel and Lubomír Zaorálek. In 2014, Foreign Ministers Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Philip Hammond used the Aspen Foreign Ministers’ Conference as a platform to present a joint German-British initiative to revitalize the reform process in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In his opening speech of 2017, Foreign Minister Gabriel emphasized Germany’s commitment to the region and revealed Germany’s plans of setting up additional funds to further support the Western Balkans.

Sub-cabinet Meetings	Read more
Policy Hub for Think Tanks from the Western Balkans	Read more
Background Discussions	Read more

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