The Western Balkans and the EU: Reassessing the relationship

Kaisa Penny is the Director of the Kalevi Sorsa Foundation. Sorsa Foundation is a Finnish think tank and a democracy support organisation. Penny holds a degree in Politics and International Relations and has a long working history in the fields of European and national politics having worked in social democratic party organisations both in Finland and at EU level before joining Sorsa Foundation at 2018.

Milena Lazarevic is one of the founders and Programme Director at the European Policy Centre (CEP), independent, non-profit think-tank based in Belgrade, Serbia. Milena is a proven expert in the field of public administration reform, in Serbia and in the Western Balkan region. Between May 2014 and March 2015, she acted as the Special Adviser to the Serbian Deputy Prime Minister in charge of public administration reform. As a consultant, she has worked for SIGMA/OECD, Regional School for Public Administration (ReSPA), the World Bank and several major international consultancy companies. Before co-founding CEP, Lazarevic worked for almost six years as a civil servant in the Serbian administration, first in the EU Integration Office of the Serbian Government (SEIO) and later in the Ministry of Public Administration. She is a Soros scholar and has an MA degree in European studies from the College of Europe and an MA in European Administrative Law from Belgrade University.

Sotiraq Hroni, former Albanian diplomat, and adviser to Albanian Prime Minister (1997) and to the President of the Republic (1997-1999), is the founder and executive director since 2000 of the Institute for Democracy and Mediation (IDM), a non-profit organization in Albania. He is responsible for overall management and development of the organisation, which operates in different program areas such as governance, security, policy hub, local governance and integrated development. He has also led the organization’s efforts to build efficient cooperation and partnerships with public and private institutions, networking and fundraising. His continuous commitments stand with offering relevance to IDM’s strategic development with the country’s development priorities.

Keijo Karjalainen is Deputy Director for the Unit for South-Eastern Europe at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland. As the Team Leader for the Western Balkans he has gained an in-depth understanding for the EU enlargement agenda and regional developments. He also follows closely domestic affairs and EU and bilateral relations, particularly in Kosovo, Montenegro and Serbia. Previously he has served in the Finnish Embassy in Washington, D.C. (2013–2016), as well in London (2009–2013) and in the Permanent representation of Finland to the EU in Brussels (2006).

Dr. Emma Hakala is a Leading Researcher at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs. Her research focuses on environmental security and the geopolitics of climate change, such as the role of international actors in building climate security practices. She leads the project “Climate change and Finland’s security of supply” and a part on conflict analysis in the project “Water Cooperation and Peace – Finnish Water Way”, which FIIA implements as a partner of the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE).

Hakala gained her D.Soc.Sci degree in political history at the University of Helsinki in 2018. Her doctoral dissertation focused on the securitisation of the environment and the role of international organisations in post-conflict Western Balkans. Hakala has previously obtained a Master’s degree in political history at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Hakala is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher in the project “Toxic Crimes: Legal Activism against Wartime Environmental Destruction” at the University of Helsinki and a member of the multidisciplinary BIOS Research Unit.