The ninth summit of Southeast European heads of state, entitled "Contemporary Art and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe", started in the vicinity of the archeological site of Viminacium near the Serbian Danube River town of Kostolac, east of Belgrade, on Friday. Croatian President Ivo Josipovic was among the participants.
Opening the conference, Serbian President Boris Tadic said that meetings like the one in Kostolac had in the past nine years significantly contributed to the promotion of overall regional cooperation and to the strengthening of stability and building of a European future for the region.
"Proposing the topic of this year's summit, we wanted to point out the important, albeit insufficiently recognised potential of contemporary art to promote values that are shared by our culturally diverse societies," said Tadic.
He added that the current crisis was not only an economic one, but a crisis of values and morality, and that overcoming it required starting, as soon as possible, a joint project of revival of universal human values to enable the development of tolerance, understanding and real dialogue.
"This summit should serve to encourage the use of contemporary art, as part of our common heritage and one of the most dynamic and powerful instruments, to deepen cooperation in the region," said Tadic.
Apart from Josipovic and Tadic, also attending the Kostolac summit were Presidents Bamir Topi of Albania, Georgi Parvanov of Bulgaria, Gjorge Ivanov of Macedonia, Filip Vujanovic of Montenegro, and the Bosniak member of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Presidency, Bakir Izetbegovic. Greece and Moldova were represented by their culture minister and deputy culture minister respectively.
UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova, the European Commissioner for Education, Culture, Multilingualism, Sport, Media and Youth, Androulla Vassiliou, and the Council of Europe Director General of Education, Culture and Heritage, Youth and Sport, Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni, were also present at the summit.
After the first part of the summit's plenary session, the participants were to visit the archeological site Viminacium, after which they were to attend the second part of the plenary session. Later in the day, Tadic and Bokova were expected to hold a news conference.
UNESCO said previously that Bokova would call for new incentives to regional cooperation projects, with emphasis on employment projects. At the end of the summit, the attending heads of state were expected to adopt a joint declaration.
The summit in Kostolac is the continuation of a UNESCO initiative launched by a high-level conference on ways to strengthen cooperation in Southeast Europe, held in April 2002. The conference has since been held annually and in 2006 it was hosted by the Croatian Adriatic resort town of Opatija.
