Brussels, 11/04/2008 (Agence Europe) - On 17 and 18 April 2008, the European Commission's Directorate-General for Enlargement will host a conference in Brussels on 'Civil Society Development in Southeast Europe: Building Europe Together'. The conference's main aim is to offer civil society organisations from the EU and the candidate and potential candidate countries a platform for networking, exchanging best practice and building partnerships. The Commission will be providing information about funding available under the pre-accession instrument (IPA) and other EU programmes to support the development of civil society. Civil society has a vital role to play in the integration of EU candidate and potential candidate countries, and turning them into modern European democracies. We will focus our financial aid more on the civil societies of the countries concerned by the EU enlargement process, thereby helping them to develop, commented EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn (who will speak at the conference) in a press release. George Soros, the founder of the Open Society Institute, will also attend.
Further information: http: //ec.europa.eu/enlargement/civil-society-development/index_en.htm (H.B.)