Institute of International Politics and Economics, in cooperation with the University of St. Kliment Ohridski from Bitola organized a lecture of Prof. Dragan Đukanović from the Faculty of Political Sciences in Belgrade on the regional integration project called Open Balkans. Professor Đukanović presented the history of Balkan regional initiatives and spoke about the advantages and disadvantages of the Open Balkans project. As advantages, ie. benefits for ordinary citizens he highlighted easier border crossing and cheaper mobile telephony services for regional traffic. The main shortcomings of this project are the lack of inclusiveness (bearing in mind that Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina do not currently participate in the project), slow implementation of signed agreements, as well as the high level of non-transparency that accompanies the whole process. Professor Djukanovic expressed skepticism about the ultimate scope of multilateral initiatives in the Western Balkans.
In the discussion section, the participants discussed additional economic and security risks related to this project, talked about the position of the Republika Srpska and BiH as a whole towards this project.
