Mission and Objectives

Since its establishment, the CEI has been working hard to fulfil its mandate: fostering political and socio-economic development in the region aimed at avoiding new division lines in Europe. To this end, the CEI is oriented to assist in various ways in strengthening the capacities of its countries remaining outside of the EU to consolidate their institutional and economic background and bring them closer to the EU.  It has made a significant contribution to the political dialogue in the region by means of its annual Meetings of the Heads of Government and Ministers of Foreign Affairs, organised by the Member State holding the rotating CEI Presidency.

The CEI has been guiding its members towards further European integration not only by supporting them in this endeavour from a political point of view, but also from a technical point of view by supporting and developing numerous initiatives for cooperation. After the latest EU enlargement of 2007, the CEI was in a strategic position by linking an equal number of EU and non-EU Member States, which jointly started paying stronger attention to a closer cooperation and know-how transfer among them. In this way, the CEI helps creating an environment of mutual understanding and respect among its countries.

In response to the changed conditions and needs on the ground the CEI has reinforced its operational activities and developed a number of tailor-made funds and instruments.

The CEI is using the resources in its  areas of activity in order to gain, for its Member States, the fullest benefits from concerted regional action. This basically means: establishing structured working relations among institutions as well as financing projects and interacting with the civil society in certain priority fields. The basic philosophy of the CEI is, therefore, a demand-oriented, bottom-up approach in its activities.

The CEI projects are aimed at providing political as well as operative complementarities to the countries of Central, Eastern and South Eastern Europe, through the specific regional membership and expertise of the CEI. They range from workshops and seminars, to projects of specific interest to the countries of the region or in the European context. In this regard, the CEI Plan of Action 2010-2012 is aimed to reflect an important change in the CEI approach to various issues of the region. The organisation intends to concentrate on fewer priorities and push them forward either by developing its own projects or by joining the forces with other partners with more experience and expertise in certain fields. Indeed, in many cases the CEI activities and projects are designed to complement and reinforce strategic programmes pursued by other international organisations, in particular the EU.