ESF

The European Security Forum, initiated by Christoph Raab, Chairman of the European Security Round Table, has been jointly set-up in Brussels by European Security Round Table, the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, the Kangaroo Group and Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique on 17-18 November 2014.
The conference, aimed to fill a gap of having regular fora for leaders to share views on the status of CSDP with top level experts and to provide a debate that has an impact in beyond Brussels, arose just after the NATO Wales Summit, in a very timely moment to discuss the future of CSDP in Europe.
Our sincere appreciation goes to Michael Gahler, MEP and Conference President, who believed in this project from its very beginning. Also thanks to the cross-party political support (EPP Group and S&D Group) and the wide international network of Partners, the European Security Forum 2014 attracted over 200 participants. Among the numerous organisations supporting the project, a special thanks goes to the official Partners: Bundesakademie für Sicherheitspolitik (BAKS, Berlin), Egmont Royal Institute for International Relation (Brussels), Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI, Rome), College of Europe and Instytut Studiów Strategicznych (ISS, Krakow). The contributors –speakers and participants- came from 44 cities across 29 countries. Among them, 90 different organisations-institutions were represented, including officials from 29 Governments.
The European Security Forum 2014 consisted in six panel discussions on the further developments and challenges of CSDP, the management of the Mediterranean area, the complex EU-NATO relations, different security perceptions in Europe, the response to the Ukrainian crisis and concrete proposals for the upcoming legislative term.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin