Abstract:
Since the fall of the Berlin Wall all the Balkan countries have turned their
direction toward the EU and NATO. During these two decades there have occurred
very drastic changes in this region. Yugoslavia has been dissolved giving birth to eight
different countries, for some of which the chirurgical “intervention” has been needed.
Albania the country enclosed in the iron cage for five decades has reached a
previously unbelievable place in the international arena with its NATO membership in
April 2009. Romania and Bulgaria within one and half decades of the fall of the
Communism in Eastern Europe, realized their NATO and EU membership dreams.
Turkey, the biggest country within the region and a senior NATO member, has
long been seeking EU membership gates by undertaking reforms. Greece, as the oldest
EU member in the region, has played a very decisive role in the integration process of
the region.
Balkan nationalism and intrastate conflicts which have been always present in
this region, have slowed down the process of integration. Corruption and governance
deficits, although in decrease, have been other factors hindering the way to EU
membership.
In these developments Epoka University, in cooperation with Istanbul
University, organized the Second International Conference on European Studies to
assist the continuing processes towards integration and to bring solutions or suggestions
to several problematic issues facing the Balkan countries.
It is my hope that the articles in the ICES`09 Proceedings will help further this
goal.
