10. History, aims and objectives

The aim of this working group (wg) is to facilitate the work on issues related to Central and Eastern European Countries (CEEC) and for better integration into the European Social Forum. Members from organisations from all european countries are therefore welcome to participate.

For more information on the history of the creation of this working group, read: Setting up the ESF 2004: European working group "Enlargement to the CEEC" (Report and decisions taken by a Working Group’s meeting at the European Preparation Assembly (AEP) in Istanbul, April 16-18 2004 - by Stefan Bekier).

At the moment, there are three main ressources for the working group:

 Working Group Mailing List

Quoting Stefan Bekier’s Istanbul report:

a) 2 (and maximum 3 representatives) of each national unitarian coordination - existing up to now in Poland, in Russia and in Hungary (in this last country in a conflictual situation, see below point E-e), or in process of formation, as for exemple in Czech Republic and Romania;

b) 1 or if possible 2 representatives of movements/networks/associations from other CEEC where it is still no unitarian coordination;

c) some activists of the old II EFS Working Group "Enlargment to the East", which presented the II ESF balance-sheet mentioned above (ie. Elisabeth Gauthier, Stéphanie Legoff, Eric Aragon and Denis Paillard from France, Carine Clément from Russia, Endre Simo from Hungary, Stefan Bekier from France/Poland, Alfons Bech from Catalonia/Spain; see points A1 and A2 of the balance-sheet about those activists);

d) 2 representatives of ESF coordinations in the Western countries (or more in case of UK which organises the III ESF) ; some of them were already present at the meeting (see the list above), and some will join the Working Group after this Istanbul EPA (the representatives of the Greek Social Forum already asked to join).

It would represent maybe about 30-35 people.

 Mailing List for Announcements

This list will send regular reports about the activities of the working group.

 This Web Site

The creation of this website was decided by the working group after the Istanbul meeting. It is using Spip and everybody is invited to get involved and create their own account to publish information (but articles are moderated, please keep inline with the topics/sections proposed).

For more information about the website, see Get Involved.

Mailing-lists and this website are provided voluntarely by the Internet Rights Bulgaria Foundation (IRBF) as part of their NGO-bg project. NGO-bg is a host for websites and services for Bulgarian social NGOs, supported by voluntary work and contributions of its users. The services are provided in the hope that they will be useful, but without any warranty.