Objectives
Given the strategic context of the Euro-Atlantic integration and a favorable climate for regional cooperation, the workshop thus proposes to examine the current perceptions on relevant security challenges in the region and devising ways to overcome them. It will focus on specific forms of security threats as regards infrastructural security such as energy security, logistical and transportation issues as well as the sensitive but considerably relevant topic of cyber space security.

The workshop will aim at contributing to the development of a regional network that will engage policy-makers, public servants, civil society leaders and experts from the Western Balkan area to transfer specific experiences concerning reforms in special security sector areas. Additionally the workshop will focus on political, economic and legal reforms relevant for aspirant countries’ progress to NATO and EU membership. In the context of civil society development, it will also be examined how NATO and EU engagement policies in Southeast Europe can be synchronized to catalyze the stabilization and integration of the region and how regional efforts can go in the same direction with these two.

Background
The conflicts over the break-up of the former Yugoslavia damaged much of the infrastructure and in many cases left the successor states with partly dysfunctional organizational background, lacking financial and administrational resources. As the process of the EU integration of the affected countries advanced, a demand for re-building regional cooperation occurred both in the EU and the successor states of Yugoslavia. The ICDT can facilitate this process by sharing the corresponding experiences of the Visegrad countries with leading officials and scholars of the Western Balkan states. Cooperation in such relevant fields as infrastructural/energy security, cyber space security (also as a trans-border threat) has proven successful and fruitful, and the ICDT is ready to share the “know-how” regarding these issues.

Project Description
A one-and-a-half-day workshop is to be held in Budapest, Hungary, in early March 2011. The ICDT will also have a major event in the similar topic for key officials in Budapest in late February which we would like to link to this particular event as a preliminary conference, however, the list of participants will differ. In this sense, topics that are to be discussed during the first event can be analyzed to a greater extent during this event.
As the ICDT's aim is to create as much synergy as possible, the two events are to be linked the most efficient way so that they can have a major overall impact. Because of these issues, the budget may be subject to alteration.