The Central Europe Initiative (CEI) joins countries and their institutions under the spirit of a pragmatic and flexible regional cooperation. Dating back to 11 November 1989, this Initiative includes 18 member countries: Albania, Austria, Belarus, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Macedonia, Montenegro, Moldavia, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Ukraine.
The goal of the Initiative is to step up cooperation among the countries in the region in the political and economic field, to ensure good neighboring relations, based on regional groupings combined within the integration processes. In addition, this Initiative is intended to integrate the economies of these countries to the EU, with their full EU membership in view.
As a member country of the Initiative from 1996 onwards, Albania tries to play an active role in it. In 2006, Albania held the Presidency of CEI. This was an important event of our foreign policy, the visibility of our country and our organizational capacities, which confirmed Albania’s active role in the regional cooperation processes.
The projects financed through various CEI instruments account for a special place in this Initiative. The good coordinating work done by the MFA made possible that the projects submitted by Albanian entities for the period 2002-2007 benefited a funding of 3.225.993 Euro. These projects cover various fields, as culture, environment, art, science and others.
