‘Solving the Balkan disputes: the Case of North Macedonia’

One EU and one non-EU state ended a 27-year dispute last year by reaching a historic agreement on the name of North Macedonia. It was an act of courage, political wisdom and real leadership that opened the path towards North Macedonia's future membership of NATO and the EU. It was also some much anticipated good news from the Western Balkans which will hopefully have a positive impact on the rest of a region – a region in need of reconciliation and good neighbourly relations. In the light of this historical breakthrough, a panel of leading Western Balkans specialists will discuss what's next for North Macedonia and for this important European region, traditionally a playing field for power politics, which is now undergoing a social, political and economic transformation on the road to a future within the EU.

With:
Srđjan CVIJIĆ, Senior policy analyst on EU external relations for the Open Society European Policy Institute (moderator)
Simonida KACARSKA, Founder and Director of the European Policy Institute in Skopje
Ioannis ARMAKOLAS, Research Fellow at the Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy, Athens and Assistant Professor in Comparative Politics of SEE  at the University of Macedonia
Dimitar BECHEV, research fellow at the Center for Slavic, Eurasian, and East European Studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, Sofia
Angelina EICHHORST, Deputy Managing Director for Europe and Central Asia  and Director for Western Europe, Western Balkans, and Turkey at the European External Action Service, Brussels