New Thinking for an Enlarged EU and the Neighbourhood - A Policy Centres meeting, Brussels, 3-5 November 2005

More than 50 representatives of civil society from Central and Eastern Europe, and Central Asia, including think-tanks from 22 transition countries, gathered in Brussels for the second PASOS General Assembly. The event marked the launch of PASOS to key stakeholders in Brussels, including the European Commission, Brussels think-tanks, and Brussels media. Speakers included Andre Wilkens, Director of Open Society Institute Brussels, Heather Grabbe, Member of Cabinet of European Commissioner Olli Rehn, Enlargement Directorate-General, and Kristian Schmidt, Deputy Head of Cabinet of European Commission Vice-President Siim Kallas.

The conference was preceded on 3 November by a panel debate, Where is the Eastern Thinking in EU Policymaking? The panellists included Pirkka Tapiola of the Policy Unit in the Secretariat of the Council
of the European Union, Michael Emerson, Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, and Stanley Crossick, Founding Chairman of the European Policy Centre. They were joined by PASOS policy specialists Martin Bútora, Honorary President of the Institute for Public Affairs, Bratislava, Arcadie Barbarosie, Executive Director of the Institute for Public Policy in Chisinau, and Jacek Kucharczyk, Director of Programming at the Institute of Public Affairs, Warsaw.

The subsequent two-day conference included a workshop on “Influencing the Policy Process at the EU Level“ with Brussels-based advocacy groups and representatives of the European Commission, and a seminar on Best Practice in Joint Project Management. The event included a panel on “Policy Challenges Facing New Governments“, examining in particular anti-corruption strategies and public administration reform, with case studies on Ukraine, Georgia, Romania and Kyrgyzstan, and a series of working group meetings designed to foster cross-border projects in the field of public policy reform.