EPAN Working Group meeting in Brussels, 5-6th October

The Working Group EPAN (Enlargement, Pre-Accession and Neighbourhood) met at the beginning of October under the auspices of TRIALOG.

The Working Group Meeting gathered representatives of the three subgroups and of TRIALOG and discussed the progress undertaken so far, the following steps and the possible challenges in 2011. A focal point of the discussion was the link between EPAN activities and next year’s Hungarian and Polish Presidency of the EU. The members of the working group also discussed and identified means to enhance the efficiency and the profile of the group in order to consolidate its status as a link between North and Global South through the very specific transition experiences of new EU member states (NMS) and Accession/Candidate Countries.

The Southern Neighbourhood subgroup expressed its intention to be present at events relevant for the area, such as the Euro Med Forum. Moreover, the focus for next year will be strengthening the connections between civil society and the secretariat of the Union for the Mediterranean.

The Eastern Neighbourhood subgroup will continue to focus on the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum and on the Black Sea Forum, with the intention of identifying links between these two events and to correlate them with the EPAN agenda.

The Pre-Accession subgroup outlined the progress made in 2010 with regard to the information sharing process between the members of the subgroup. Next year, it is intended to enhance the engagement of the grass root level organisations in Pre-Accession countries and to strengthen the participation of members from Turkey, Iceland and Croatia. The subgroup concluded that it is important to increase the development capacities of the so-called Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA)-countries and their capacity to absorb funding.

During the two-day meeting the members of EPAN had the opportunity to exchange views with guests such as representatives of the European Commission, UNDP or representatives of NGOs from other thematic sectors.

More details from the meeting report will be available soon on TRIALOG’s website. For any further questions, please contact TRIALOG policy officer Monika Matus at: trialog@concordeurope.org

Information provided by Monika Matus, TRIALOG