A new policy paper “Regional cooperation in the Western Balkans – is there a civil society pillar?” written by Jelica Minić, Zoran Nechev and Ivan Nikolovski has been released by the SEE Think Net.

An increasing number of EU officials and institutions is posing questions in regards to the effectiveness of regional organizations and initiatives in the Western Balkans. This comes in times when EU member states are engaging in something that might end in major overhaul of the accession process as we know it. And in this process, the segment of the Commission dealing with enlargement, under the new leadership of the Hungarian nominee Oliver Varhelyi, would need to answer these questions. With such state of play, the authors of this paper engage in drafting a paper that would contribute to the overall debate by analysing the role of civil society in the expansion and consolidation of regional cooperation through inclusion in the work of regional organizations and initiatives. The paper goes into detail in mapping and elaborating the involvement of CSOs and their regional networks in the core work of these institutions.