4th Civil Society Forum Annual Event to Be Held in Sweden, 29-30 November 2012 - call for participants to be launched second week of May

The Steering Committee of the Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum, working to increase the transparency and information flow throughout the work of the Forum, is publishing and sharing with Forum participants the decisions of the first two Steering Committee meetings of 2012, which took place on 26-27 January in Brussels, and 4-5 April in Baku, respectively.

Key decisions included registration of the Secretariat of the Forum, finalisation of the Strategy Concept of the Forum - both as decided by a vote of participants at the Poznan Forum in November 2011, the election of two co-Chairs, Igor Kohut and Jeff Lovitt, and the decision to hold the 4th annual Forum in Sweden on 29-30 November 2012.

Sub-groups of the Steering Committee will comprise: (a) country facilitators; (b) working group co-ordinators; (c) EU co-ordinators/communications group; (e) Sweden Forum event group. Sub-groups would consider a framework for development of guidelines and procedures for the work of the Forum and its constituent parts, building on the existing rules and procedures. CSF flagship initiatives would be another focus (flagship initiatives to include: elections; anti-corruption; media freedom; visa liberalisation; monitoring of bilateral agreements).

Submissions were to be formulated towards the consultation on the Eastern Partnership Roadmap, and to be encouraged from the national platforms, under preparation by the European Commission. The Steering Committee would focus on key external relations partners, including Euronest, and would submit two proposals - partners to be chosen through consultation with the national platforms - to the European Neighbourhood Civil Society Facility.

The procedures for selection of participants in the 2012 Forum annual event were finalised, pending approval of the European Commission, and the call for applications will be launched in the second week of May 2012.

Other scheduled CSF WG and intergovernmental platform meetings:

31 May 2012: Platform 2 intergovernmental meeting: Brussels

6 June 2012: WG1 CSF meeting: Brussels

7 June 2012: Platform 1 intergovernmental meeting: Brussels

18 June 2012: Platform 3 intergovernmental meeting: Brussels

21 June 2012: Platform 4 intergovernmental meeting: Brussels

9 July 2012: WG2 CSF meeting: Brussels

17-18 July 2012: EAP CSF Steering Committee meeting, Brussels

A summary of the decisions of each meeting is downloadable here:

Summary of decisions and conclusions, Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Steering Committee meeting, Brussels, 26-27 January 2012

Summary of decisions and conclusions, Eastern Partnership Civil Society Forum Steering Committee meeting, Baku, Azerbaijan, 4-5 April 2012

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