The Eastern Partnership (EaP) Civil Society Forum (CSF) met for the first time in Brussels on 16-17 November 2009. It was created as part of the EU Eastern Partnership, inaugurated in May in Prague and designed to strengthen the relationship between the EU and six countries along its eastern border.
The European Commission chose 220 civil society organisations to take part in the forum of the 439 that expressed their interest in attending, including the EPAN working group (http://www.trialog.or.at/workinggroupepan) as a whole representing CONCORD and several individual member organisations that specialise in the Eastern Partnership countries. Participants were divided into four working groups, based on the themes of democracy, human rights, good governance and stability; economic integration and convergence with EU policies; environment, climate change and energy security; and contacts between people. These working groups produced recommendations, which were presented at the end of the forum to External relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner and Swedish Presidency representative Carl Bildt.
A steering group was also elected to lead the future work of the forum. This is composed of two representatives per working group (one from the EaP countries, one from the EU), six country facilitators from the EaP countries and three EU representatives. The steering group will meet next in January 2010.
All documents related to the EaP CSF process so far can be found on http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/eastern/civil_society/index_en.htm
Information provided by Rebecca Steel-Jasińska, TRIALOG
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