Balkans 2 Project: An Opportunity for Sharing Opinions between Italy and South East Europe

On May 13th in Rome, the Balkans 2 Project concluded with a Final Conference to which the project staff as well as representatives from the Balkan institutions, executives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Cultural Heritage, the Ministry of Environment, Territory and Sea and the Department for Civil Protection and Territorial Protection, took part together with the Directors of the Offices for Internationalization of all the Italian region and Formez in the person of President Carlo Flamment.
The project has been financed by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs under law 84 of 2001 with the aim to support the process of modernization and strengthening of local and central Balkan administrations, so as to optimize the tools at the service of the citizen.
The project was directed to functionaries and experts from the following administrations: Serbia, Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia and Montenegro.
The project activities which have been identified and agreed upon together with the institutional counterpart from the countries involved, have focussed on four specific subjects: Protection and Enhancement of the Cultural Heritage, Civil Protection, Management of Protected Areas and Communications for the Public Administration.
These have been developed through transversal actions, training courses in loco, technical assistance and the use of thematic professional communities in order to promote common experience and the sharing of significant results among the beneficiaries.
Mr Flamment made the following remark: “The common work which has been carried out during this year of activities, demonstrates how the commitment to combining experiences and competencies of the experts with regard to the four thematic guide-lines in the field of Civil Protection, Cultural Heritage and Protected Areas has achieved excellent results”. This has strengthened the liaisons based on reciprocal appreciation and friendship between Formez and the ministries involved in the project, thus allowing for the opening of new perspectives of future development and collaboration between the Balkan ministries. 
In order to guarantee visibility of the BALKAN project at national level, the ministries involved will be able to utilize a common portal where the materials emerged from the last activities of internship in Italy, the trans-national seminar and the final conference have been included and will continue to be developed and broadened with future activities.