As a part of the international conference “CFSP and Serbian Accession to the European Union” on 12 May 2015, the “Guide to Chapter 31” was presented to the public with a goal to help those interested in better understanding of this negotiation chapter. The Guide was presented by Milan Pajevic, Chairman of the Advisory Board of the ISAC Fund, Tanja Miscevic, Head of the Negotiating Team for the Accession of the Republic of Serbia to the European Union, and Jadranka Jelincic, Director of the Open Society Foundations. There was a high interest for the promotion and the representatives of various institutions were present, such as the Government and the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia, the Office for European Integration, as well as the representatives of the diplomatic corps of the Member States of the European Union, the media and civil society in Serbia.
The Guide also contains basic information about the development, structure and importance of the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union, as a mechanism for the coordination of national policies. This publication also discusses individual topics, such as human rights, democratization and the rule of law, support for the work of the International Criminal Court, preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, etc., on which the common foreign policy approach of the Union is based. Also, a topic that was discussed in particular is the operational dimension of this aspect of the EU, embodied in the Common Security and Defense Policy, i.e. civilian missions and military operations of the EU.
The electronic version of the article can be downloaded here.