The French Institute - Sofia, The Bulgarian European Community Studies Association (BECSA), The Centre for Liberal Strategies, The Embassy of France, The Red House Centre for Culture and Debate and RFI present within the cycle “Europe, Here and Now”:

Kosovo – the Beginning or the End of the “balkanization” process

public lecture by Jean Arnold Derrens

Followed by a discussion with the participation of Vessela Cherneva (programme Director at the Centre for Liberal Strategies)

A few weeks after the announcement of Kosovo’s independence the Red House is looking for the answer to the question how does the rise of this new country reflect the future of the Balkans.

More information on the lector
Jean-Arnold Derrens is the author of the book “Understanding the Balkans – history, society, perspectives”, as well as editor-in-chief of “Balkan Courier” – the French-oriented portal for the Balkans, in existence since 1998. This portal provides information, analyses, comments and interviews on present day topics from the Balkans, as well as regular information updating arranged in topics and headings, concerning the different countries on the Balkan Peninsula. The main publications from the Balkan media, which is in process of democratization, can be traced on the Portal with French translation.
In separate topical rubrics such as Media, Minorities, European integration, Migration, Music, Islam, Culture, Cinema, Sport, can be found extensive information and analyses.

More information on the Internet: http://balkans.courriers.info/

Vessela Cherneva is programme Director at CLS and since 2005 has been editor-in-chief of Foreign Policy Magazine for Bulgaria. She coordinates the activity of the International Commission on the Balkans, presided by Giuliano Amato (www.balkan-commission.org). Her career includes the position of political secretary at the Bulgarian embassy in the USA (2000 – 2003), expert on the topics: the bilateral affairs USA – Bulgaria; political and military aspects of security, including the NATO expansion, the relations between NGO’s and the administration. Vessela Cherneva is a graduate of Rheinische Friedrich Wilhelms-Universitat Bonn in Political Sciences.

Moderator: Tony Nikolov (editor-in-chief, RFI – Bulgaria)

More information on the event
The lections' cycle "Europe, here and now" is an initiative of the French embassy in Bulgaria. It aims at provoking civil debate on the big present day questions of the European Union and to present the French vision to the Bulgarian public.

March 24 (Monday) 2008, 7.00 p.m.
Red hall
In French, with simultaneous translation in Bulgarian
Free entrance