Conference date: 2 June 2016 (Thursday) at 10.00

Conference venue: Académie Royale – Salle Ilya Prigogine, rue Ducale 1, Brussels

The purpose of this joint conference is to review how politicians and the society in Central and Eastern Europe have responded to the current refugee crisis. The conference will investigate the social and political roots of the current crisis; the characteristic national responses in the Central European region; and the impact the crisis is likely to have on the already substantial populist movement across Europe.

The half-day conference will feature three sections. After the opening statement by FEPS, Tamás Boros from Policy Solutions will present their study on the political background of the refugee crisis. Then, in a panel discussion Eszter Zalan from EUobserver, Elsa Laino from Solidar, and Julien Zalc from TNS Opinion will discuss why this topic has become the most disputed political issue of the year. They will reveal the social and political rationale behind the European countries’ different approaches of the crisis. After the panel discussion, MEP Tanja Fajon (Slovenia), co-chair of Party of European Socialists Democracy Network will speak about why CEE countries’ approach is different than that of the Western European countries. The conference will be closed by a Q&A session.

You can find the detailed programme of the event here 

You can download the related study from here. 

If you wish to attend, please register before 30 May 2016 at http://www.feps-europe.eu/en/news/812_the-political-background-of-the-refugee-crisis-in-europe.

We are looking forward to seeing you at the conference.