LATESTNEWS

The Committee of National Coordinators (CNC) is gathering for the first time this year on 10 February in Kyiv. It is the first meeting in the framework of the Ukrainian Presidency, operative as of 1 January 2012. On top of the agenda: priorities and programme of the Presidency. In this context, the CNC will start with the preparations of the various high-level meetings, in particular the MFA Meeting scheduled for 13 June in Trieste.

Through the CEI Fund at the EBRD the CEI has provided technical assistance grants of around €300.000 for a project aimed at rehabilitating key sections of Corridor X, the main north-south route running through Serbia, which is also the country’s key regional link with its neighbours. This technical assistance, complemented by funding provided by the Western Balkan Investment Framework and the EBRD Shareholder Special Fund, has led to a sovereign-guaranteed EBRD loan of up to €95 million to Joint Stock Company Serbian Railways.

The results of the referendum in Croatia, with a decisive majority of voters in favour of the accession to the European Union, have been warmly welcomed by the Central European Initiative whose mission is regional cooperation for European integration.
CEI Secretary General, Amb. Gerhard Pfanzelter, stated that “Croatia’s success is also a success of the Central European Initiative which has invested funds and projects to facilitate European integration”.

The CEI Prize assigned in the framework of the Trieste Film Festival has been awarded this year to the Macedonian director Milcho Manchevski for his multifaceted, thirty-year career in cinema productions. The CEI Prize (3.000 EUR) was  presented by CEI Deputy Secretary General, Mr Zoran Jovanovic, during the awarding ceremony in Trieste on 21 January.

The Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs has decided to make a voluntary contribution of €25,000 to the CEI Know-how Exchange Programme (KEP), an instrument which supports projects and programmes focused on the transfer of know-how and best practice from EU to non-EU CEI Member States.