Europe Should Return to What it’s Good at, Growth Through Expansion – Egemen Bağış

Seventy years ago the European Union was a dream. It has been realized, although it seemed impossible. 

Seventy years ago the European Union was a dream. It has been realized, although it seemed impossible.  It has given  the people of Europe, who had been fighting with one another for centuries, an opportunity to live and work together in peace. This opinion was voiced by Egemen Bağış, Minister for European Union Affairs and Chief Negotiator of Turkey while taking part in the panel discussion, Europe: Destination Unknow,  at the 10^th Annual Meeting of Yalta European Strategy, at the historic Livadia Palace on Saturday.

“The French, the Germans, the English and Spanish – they were always in conflictwith each other, fighting with each other. And now they can live together. The European Union is the largest project of its kind in the history of humanity,” he said.    

Now the European Union has achieved this, the Turkish Minister believes it should  begin a new chapter of integration.  “Europe should get back to doing what it does best - promoting the idea of growth through expansion. It is necessary that Europe forget its prejudices and accept new, dynamically developing countries – such as Ukraine, and Turkey. They should become fully-fledged members of this global project,” Egemen Bağış said.

The 10th Yalta Annual Meeting is streamed live at korrespondent.net and
yes-ukraine.org in English and Ukrainian on September 20^th and 21^st.

Live Webcasts will also be available on the websites of ICTV (ictv.ua), Channel 5 (5.ua), «Kommersant» newspaper (kommersant.ua), as well as the online edition of "Ukrainska Pravda» (pravda.com.ua).

The official Twitter of the 10th Yalta Annual Meeting: @yes_ukraine, hashtag: #yalta2013

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Yalta European Strategy (YES) is the largest social institution of public diplomacy in Eastern Europe, providing an open and equal dialogue on global issues affecting the European Union, Ukraine, Russia and other countries. This non-partisan organisation was established in 2004 by the Ukrainian businessman and public figure Victor Pinchuk.

The YES Annual Meetings held in Yalta’s Livadia Palace have become an open platform to discuss and look for new ideas and views on paths to European, Ukrainian and global development. Every year these meetings bring together over 200 politicians, diplomats, statesmen, journalists, analysts and business leaders from more than 20 countries.  The dialogue on global challenges broadens the vision on the situation inside Ukraine and the prospects for the country’s development in the modern world. It is also an incentive to find common ground between countries, common interests and values.

At the YES Annual Meetings the world's top opinion leaders present their visions of current and future trends which impact all spheres of life of society. In 2010, 2011 and 2012 the events were opened by Presidents Viktor Yanukovych, Bronislaw Komorowski, Shimon Peres and Prime Minister of the Republic of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. YES Annual Meetings key speakers have included Mykola Azarov, Kofi Annan, Egemen Bagis, Carl Bildt, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Richard Branson, James Wolfensohn, Newt Gingrich, Herman Gref, Arkadiy Dvorkovich,  Robert Zoellick, Bill Clinton, Paul Krugman,
Alexei Kudrin, Leonid Kuchma, Yuri Milner, Condoleezza Rice, Lawrence Summers, Radoslaw Sikorski, Javier Solana, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Shashi Tharoor, Strobe Talbott, Niall Ferguson, Vladimir Filat, Joschka Fischer, Stefan Fule, Gerhard Schroeder, Muhammad Yunus and many others.

Official website: www.yes-ukraine.org

Victor Pinchuk Foundation is an international, private and non-partisan philanthropic foundation based in Ukraine. It was established in 2006 by businessman and public figure Victor Pinchuk. Its goal is to empower future generations to become the change-makers of tomorrow. To achieve this, projects are developed and partnerships are built in Ukraine and worldwide.

in people, to boost human capital;
in society, to promote social responsibility;
in the world, to foster a more integrated world.

The projects of the Victor Pinchuk Foundation include, among others: the network of neonatal centers Cradles of Hope, the largest private scholarship programme in Ukraine, Zavtra.UA, the WorldWideStudies scholarship programme for Ukrainian students studying abroad, the centre for contemporary art PinchukArtCentre with its biannual prizes Future Generation Art Prize and PinchukArtCentre Prize. The foundation also hosts the Davos Philanthropic Roundtable and Davos Ukrainian Lunch organized each year at the occasion of the Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum and supports the international network YES (Yalta European Strategy) to foster Ukraine’s European and global integration, as well as a startup online platform for fostering philanthropy in Ukraine, the Philanthropic Marketplace. The Foundation is a member of the European Foundation Centre and the Ukrainian Grantmakers Forum. It cooperates with the Clinton Global Initiative, the Brookings Institution, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, the Peres Center for Peace, the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, and other nongovernmental organizations.

Official website: pinchukfund.org

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