Advocacy meetings for better benchmarking mechanisms

In the period 20-21 March 2018, the representatives of European Policy Institute (EPI) from Skopje, Institute Alternative (IA) from Podgorica and Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI BH) from Sarajevo visited The Hague, Netherlands in order to conduct advocacy meetings with representatives of civil society, academia and the Dutch government. The aim of the advocacy meetings was to present the key finding and recommendations of the analysis of benchmarking mechanism in the Western Balkan countries (BENCHER project) and gain an understanding into the Dutch perception of the enlargement process.

The team met with Michiel Luining, lecturer at the Leiden University, representatives of the Netherlands Institute for Multiparty Democracy (NIMD), freelance journalist Joost van Egmond, Emine Bozkurt, Member of the European Parliament and representatives of the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (IDEA), The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies (HCSS) as well as with the representatives of the Dutch Parliament House of Representatives and the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.