About Athens SEECP Chairmanship-in-Office 2021-2022

Athens assumes the SEECP Chairmanship-in-Office for one year on 1 July 2021.

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As a founding participant of the SEECP, Athens designed its Chairmanship priorities and activities with an aim to strengthen the regional ownership and inclusiveness principles. The Chairmanship activities will be complementary and provide added value to existing efforts to address regional challenges.

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The South East European Cooperation Process was launched in 1996 in Sofia and the first Summit was organised in Creta in 1997. Its scope and principles of good neighborly relations, democracy, economic prosperity and approach to the Euro-atlantic structures remain relevant, and even more so, in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak.

For the period July 2021-June 2022 Athens holds the Chairmanship-in-Office of the SEECP following the one of Ankara. Greece, a founding member of the process, has held the presidency in 1997-1998 and 2005-2006 as well. The current Athens’ Chairmanship, as declared by its motto "Strengthening SEE Synergies", will focus on the added value of synergies in a regional and international context, in facing modern challenges and evolving in the demanding socioeconomic environment of current times.

The 25 years of cooperation within SEECP prove that the development of synergies, with the combined powers and the coordinated efforts of the participants throughout South East Europe, leads to multiple benefits,
both for each participant and for the region as a whole.

The priorities set by the Chairmanship aim at pointing out the needs of the region and ways to address them by sharing experiences and capitalizing on initiatives in regional, EU and international level.

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We are confident that with the cooperation of all SEE partners, through the set priorities and result oriented and carefully prepared activities, SEE synergies will indeed be strengthened as the motto adopted indicates.