EU-Western Balkans Summit – breaking the stalemate: women, youth, justice and enlargement

Fjoralba Caka is the former Albanian minister for justice covering European integration and anti-corruption policies. Having started her career as an academic teaching EU Law, she has maintained an ongoing cooperation with civil society organisations. She also served as a lawyer on issues related to strategic litigation and offered legal aid for people in need and for marginalised communities. In addition, she has led projects focusing on youth and national anti-corruption campaigns, including ‘Fighting Corruption in the Higher Education System’ and ‘Bookworm Project – outdoors mini-library’.

Mila Carovska is the former minister of education and science, as well as of labour and social welfare, in North Macedonia. She has also previously served as the deputy prime minister responsible for economic affairs during the transition government in 2020. Carovska is an avid proponent of human rights whose professional career to date has been marked by a commitment to social work on behalf of the most vulnerable and threatened citizens, whether it be Roma, disadvantaged youth, drug addicts or victims of domestic violence. Projects she has managed over the years include organising drama workshops with children housed in institutions, hosting educational workshops, offering consultations for drug users and their families, and conducting field research. Carovska has used her platform to advocate for gender equality, the elimination of violence against women and anti-discrimination.

Martin Dvořák is the Minister of European Affairs of the Czech Republic, prior to which he served as the Czech ambassador to Kuwait and Qatar. He has also served as the consul general of the Czech Republic in New York and headed the trade and economic section of the Czech Embassy in Washington. Dvořák served in Basra as a political advisor to the Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority for Southern Iraq in the formation of interim local governments.  Notably, after the Velvet Revolution, he was the first democratically elected mayor of the city of Hradec Králové, after which he was appointed as a member of the UN mission for the post-war reconstruction of Kosovo.

Štefan Füle is a Czech politician and diplomat who previously served as the Czech Special Envoy to the OSCE and the Western Balkans. Having started his career in the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he worked as Czech Ambassador to Lithuania and to the UK, as well as becoming Czech Permanent Representative to NATO. In 2010, he became the EU Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood Policy where he was instrumental in setting up and developing the Eastern Partnership with six countries in Eastern Europe and the South Caucasus.

An expert in justice system reform, Etilda Gjonaj is former Albanian minister of justice and has also served as the country’s deputy minister of justice and commissioner on public administration issues at the office of the ombudsperson. Gjonaj is a civil society activist, supporting human rights for over a decade at the Albanian Helsinki Committee. As a lawyer, she has handled numerous human rights violations cases, including legal processes affecting children. Gjonaj lectures at the Department of Criminal Law at the University of Tirana, and has authored several publications, research studies and scientific articles in local and international legal journals in the field of justice.

Maida Gorčević currently serves as the Minister of European Affairs of Montenegro. Previously, she served as an advisor on minority rights to the Prime Minister of Montenegro.  

Igli Hasani currently serves as the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of Albania. Previously, he held the post of coordinator for economic and environmental activities at the Organization for Security and Co–operation in Europe (OSCE). Hasani is the former ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary, and former permanent representative of the Republic of Albania to the international organizations in Vienna. Notably, he has led the Mediterranean Contact Group, part of the OSCE Troika, served as the chairman of the Asian Partners for Co-operation Group. During the Albanian Presidency chairmanship of the OSCE in 2020, he was the chairman of the organisation’s Permanent Council.  

Christopher R. Hill is currently the Ambassador of the United States to Serbia. He is a five-time ambassador – having been nominated by five presidents – and notably served as Ambassador to Iraq from April 2009 until August 2010. Prior to Iraq, Hill served as Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs (2005-2009), during which he was also the head of the US delegation to the Six Party Talks on the North Korean nuclear issue. He was previously the US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, to Poland and to Macedonia, in addition to serving as Special Envoy to Kosovo (1998-1999). He is also a monthly columnist for Project Syndicate.

Gert Jan Koopman is the Director-General of the Neighbourhood and Enlargement Negotiations, prior to which he served as the director-general of the European Commission’s budget department. In this role, he contributed to putting in place the European Union’s €800bn NextGenerationEU recovery plan, as well as the €18bn MFA+ for Ukraine. He has worked to enable its financing on the capital markets through a sovereign-style funding system. Having served the EU for nearly three decades, Koopman was previously in charge of state aid control at the Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition. His earlier assignments included senior management posts in the department for economic and financial affairs, the Commission’s economic service, as well as enterprise and industry, which supervises the smooth running of the single market. 

Zoran Jolevski is a senior North Macedonian diplomat with over 20 years of experience in public affairs and foreign service. As the Ambassador to the United States, he helped secure American support for the accession of North Macedonia to NATO. In 2008, Jolevski was appointed to lead the negotiations on the naming dispute with Greece. Holding a PhD in International Economy from Saints Cyril and Methodius University of Skopje, Jolevski has also published widely on the subject of international trade.

Miroslav Lajčák has more than 30 years of experience in foreign policy, having dedicated his professional life to diplomacy, representing both the Slovak Republic and the international community. He has served as the Slovak foreign and European affairs minister four times, as well as the ambassador to Japan and several southeastern European countries. Lajčák was also the executive assistant to the United Nations Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the Balkans and has held several other supporting positions in institutions such as the EEAS, the UNGA and the OSCE.

Steliana Nadera is the Manager at the Istanbul Regional Hub of the UNDP Regional Bureau for Europe and Central Asia. Previously, she served as a UNDP resident representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Previously, she was also the head of office of UK Aid in Moldova and the programme coordinator at Soros Foundation Moldova.

Arbërie Nagavci has built her professional career through extensive service at all levels of education, having made valuable contributions in policymaking in the field of education. Prior to her appointment as the Minister of Education, Nagavci served two terms as a member of the Kosovo Assembly, where she was voted as the first deputy chairwoman and sat on the parliamentary committees on education, and budget and finance. The former director of the Municipal Education Directorate in Prishtina and a certified trainer for teacher professional development programme, she has also worked as a consultant and advisor on educational leadership, human rights and children’s rights to various bodies. Nagavci began her career as a teacher and school principal in her hometown of Gjakova.

Prior to serving as the Minister of Foreign Affairs of North Macedonia, Bujar Osmani coordinated the EU accession process for North Macedonia and was the national coordinator of the EU financial Instrument for Pre-accession Assistance (IPA). Originally trained as a doctor in Skopje and the United Kingdom, he became a specialist in hepatobiliary pancreatic surgery. Previously, Osmani served as the health minister and was also appointed as the secretary of public relations at the presidency of the Democratic Union for Integration, one of the principal political parties in North Macedonia.

Jelena Pejić Nikić is senior researcher and programme manager at the Belgrade Centre for Security Policy and a PhD student at the Faculty of Political Science in Belgrade. She coordinates prEUgovor, a coalition of 7 civil society organisations monitoring rule of law reforms in Serbia. Her areas of interest include EU enlargement, security sector reform, state capture, constitutional reform, privacy and data protection.  Previously, Pejić Nikić was an intern at the German Bundestag, as part of the International Parliamentary Sholarship (IPS).  

Marija Risteska is the Founder and Executive Director of the Centre for Research and Policy Making (CRPM). She also served as the Policy Coordinator for European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Western Balkans Women in Business programme and Co-Chair of the working group for Chapter 19 of the National Convention for the EU Integration.  

Lenche Ristoska currently serves as the Liaison Prosecutor for the Republic of North Macedonia at Eurojust. Previously, she worked as a prosecutor in the Special Public Prosecutor’s Office, where she conducted national criminal investigations into complex cases of illegal interception of communications, abuse of official powers, corruption, illegal political party financing and money laundering. Prior to this, Ristoska was appointed as a public prosecutor at the Basic Public Prosecutor’s Office of Skopje, where she worked on different types of criminal cases and in the Department for International Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters, executing incoming mutual legal assistance requests.

Tamara served as the minister for public administration, digital society and media in Montenegro, in which role she advocated for public administration reform, digital transformation and the development of e-government services. Prior to this, Tamara was integral to the launch of the Government of California’s Digital Innovation Office, established to improve the state’s digital services. In this capacity, she led the COVID-19 digital response, the Policy Design Lab and the Inclusive by Design initiative. She is also the Co-Founder and former deputy director of the Office of Innovation at the California Health and Human Services Agency, where she was responsible for driving innovation to provide critical healthcare and social services. She has been involved with a number of organisations and programmes, including Alchemist, CivicMakers, Code for America, New America and most recently, Regional School of Public Administration (ReSPA), where she provides support for public administration reform in the Western Balkans.

Olha Stefanishyna is the Deputy Prime Minister for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration. Previously, she served as the director-general of the office for coordination of European and Euro-Atlantic integration at the Secretariat of the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. 

Jovana Trenchevska is the Minister of Labour and Social Policy of North Macedonia. Previously, she served as the head of unit for gender equality in the sector for equal opportunities in the Ministry of Labour and Social Policy, after which she was appointed as the state secretary of the ministry. She has also notably served as the acting director and director of the State Labour Inspectorate.