The newly established European Strategy Forum intends to contribute to this process. Its first meeting in Ponte de Lima on 29 and 30 September will therefore be devoted to a review of the Union’s priorities across the board. The provisional titles of the eight papers that will constitute the basis for discussion are listed on the following page.

The papers, which will eventually be published as the first volume of what is intended to become a series, will be both intellectually rigorous and politically independent. They will also however allow due weight to political, institutional, social and economic realities at both member state and EU level. Prisoners of the present can never become masters of the future. Neither however can those who pretend that a Union which has a rich and complicated fifty year history behind it can be remade in accordance with the latest fashions by leaders who refuse to work with or within established structures. The Forum will therefore try to strike a balance between radicalism and realism.

Registered Participants
September 2006 Meeting

Álvaro Mendonça e Moura
Permanent Representative of Portugal to the European Union

Andrew Duff
Member of the European Parliament
Member of the Convention

*Anne Mette Vestergaard
Chief Adviser on European Affairs, Danish Institute for International Studies

António Vitorino
Chairman of the General Assembly, ESF

Arian Starova
former Foreign Minister of Albania

Artur Santos Silva
Chairman of the Board
Banco BPI, S.A.;

Constatinos Simitis
former Prime Minister of Greece

Danuta Hübner
European Commissioner for Regional Policy

Dimitrij Rupel
Foreign Minister of Slovenia

Fabrizio Barbaso
deputy Director General, DG Energy, European Commission (representing Commissioner Piebalgs)

Fernando Andresen Guimarães
Portuguese Ambassador to the U.K.

Goran Svilanovic
former Foreign minister of Yugoslavia and Serbia-Montenegro

Gregório Faria
retired ambassador, Special Advisor to the Gulbenkian Foundation

*Guy Milton
Council of Ministers, European Union

Hannes Swoboda
Member of the European Parliament

*Iain Begg
Professor, London School of Economics

Isabel Mota
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian

Jaakko Iloniemi
President of UNIFIN and former Finnish Ambassador to the US

Jean François-Poncet
Member of French Senate; former Foreign Minister of France

*João Marques de Almeida
Director do Instituto de Defesa Nacional;
member of the Cabinet of President Barroso

*Jorge Vasconcelos
ERSE - Entidade Reguladora de Serviços Energéticos - Portugal

José Daniel Rosas Campelo da Rocha
Presidente da Câmara Municipal de Ponte de Lima, Câmara Municipal de Ponte de Lima

José Manuel Villas Boas
retired ambassador, member of the executive committee, ESF

Juraj Nociar
deputy Permanent Representative of Slovakia to the European Union
(standing in for Maros Sefcovic, the Permanent Representative)

Kim Darroch
Adviser to the British Prime Minister on the European Union

Luís Neto
Vice- president of Banco Nacional Ultramarino

Manuel Lobo Antunes
Secretário de Estado dos Assuntos Europeus
Ministério dos Negócios Estrangeiros

Margarida Marques
Directora do Gabinete em Lisboa para a Comissão Europeia

Maria João Rodrigues
ISCTE - Instituto Superior de Ciências do Trabalho e da Empresa

Meglena Kuneva
Bulgarian Minister for European Affairs

Osman Topcagic;
Director of the Directorate for European Integration
Council of Ministers of Bosnia-Herzegovina;

Paul Burton
Secretary General of the Executive Committee, ESF

Peter Ludlow
Chairman of the Executive Committee, ESF

Poul Skytte Christoffersen
deputy Chairman of the General Assembly, ESF

Radmila Sekerniska
deputy Prime Minister of Macedonia

Robert Cooper
Director General for External and Politico-Military Affairs in the Council of Ministers

Robert Illing
Member of the Audit Committee, ESF

Steven Everts
Cabinet of Javier Solana, Secretary General and
High Representative of the Council of Ministers

*Thierry Balzacq
Research Fellow CEPS and Professor at the University of Namur

Tom de Bruijn
Permanent Representative of the Netherlands to the European Union

Vítor Ângelo Martins
Gabinete do Presidente (Portugal)

Vítor Manuel Ribeiro Constâncio
Governor Banco de Portugal

Vladimir Drbonjak
Ambassador; Chief Negotiator of Croatia in Accession Negotiations;

Wolfgang Munchau
Financial Times

* Authors