U.S.-Greece Task Force: Transforming the Balkans

While the past decade has witnessed remarkable progress in stabilizing the Western Balkans and positioning the region on the ladder to NATO and EU membership, significant work still needs to be accomplished in order to fully secure the peninsula as a component part of the Euro-Atlantic community. Working in tandem, the United States and Greece can move this process forward as the two long-standing allies share the same objectives of political stabilization, durable security, economic development, and international institutional integration for the entire Balkan region. A collaborative bilateral initiative by two key policy institutes in both countries, Center for Strategic and International Studies in the United States and the Hellenic Centre for European Studies (EKEM) in Greece, will help promote this process by establishing a U.S.-Greece Task Force consisting of two Working Groups, one based in Washington D.C. and one in Athens.

U.S.-Greece Task Force: Objectives

• Assemble policy experts, regional specialists, security and foreign policy analysts, NGO representatives, business leaders, and other interested parties to create a durable network of expertise committed to developing the U.S.-Greek partnership in working more effectively in the wider Balkan region.
• Alert the Washington policy community, the NGO sector, and business leaders to specific opportunities and obstacles facing the Western Balkans in the region’s drive toward democracy, the rule of law, market economics, regional security, and international institutional integration.
• Promulgate practical policy recommendations for American and Greek policymakers and innovative approaches in the Balkans and within international fora on the basis of Task Force discussions and findings.
• Publish Task Force papers and recommendations and disseminate them to a wider audience in the United States and in Europe.