Bringing Europe Together

“We believe that it is time to awaken the potential that Central Europe has and turn it into a productive effort for the common good of the people from all corners of Europe.”

The world, Europe and Slovakia are standing on the verge of serious changes that will influence the lives of all of us. Climate change, exhaustion of the current economic model, changing lines of force in the global geopolitical environment, combined with new security challenges are shifting the perception of security and prosperity to whole new levels. They require a new degree of preparedness and policies not only from governments, but from all stakeholders in our societies.
We are facing a new era where those who will succeed will be the ones able to transform its challenges into opportunities. In ICE we are persuaded that if Slovakia wants to be among the successful ones in this story, it needs to be prepared not only on the national level by having policies anticipating the realities of the new era, but on the regional and European level as well, by coordinating policies within the central European region and actively shaping European policies, aiming to overcome the divisions that have separated eastern and western EU members during the recent years. We believe that it is time to wake the potential of central Europe and transform it into a productive effort to the benefit of all citizens of Europe.
The prerequisite for making good public policies on the national level is their accordance with the European context as well as a thorough public discussion. Hence, we aim to provide a forum for discussion and shaping public policies in order to make them comply with the requirements and pressures of the transformed world.
In our activities we are focusing on topics that tend to play a decisive role in shaping the future of Slovakia and Europe. We aim to combine our own research with the knowledge of both domestic and international experts in various areas. Our goal is to to help improve the decision-making process so that it is based on facts, sectoral analyses and expert discussion respecting a broader context of interdependences.

Actual Articles

On 13 July, a conference on the European Asylum Policy after Ukraine was organised by the Institute for Central Europe in cooperation with the University of Liège and the University of Paris Cité in the framework of the ACRONYM project. The conference aimed to bring new perspectives on migration in the context of the ongoing war in Ukraine and the war-induced refugee crisis.

A policy dialogue, followed by three panel discussions, brought together migration policymakers, NGO representatives, academics, and migration practitioners to exchange views on the topic and to highlight the gaps and shortcomings that hinder more effective migration decisions in times of need. The conference also highlighted the problem of the abuse of the topic of migration by politicians and stressed the need to de-politicise this area and reflect on migration through the prism of rationality supported by facts. 

Through this project, the Central European Migration Research Hub was also launched, which will serve as a clearing house for academics and migration experts, a knowledge hub to share and find publications, a platform for sharing cooperation opportunities as well as events and conferences on migration to facilitate networking and clustering of people in the CEE region on the topic. In the second half of the conference, scholars presented their scientific studies in which they shed light on the importance of the social and health perspective in the implementation of an effective asylum policy, the issue of neglect of the discrimination against Roma refugees, as well as the projects implemented by Slovak universities in the context of migration.

European Asylum Policy After Ukraine

EVENT

Events

Conference – European Asylum Policy After Ukraine

Projects

Cooperation of ICE with Partners

Publications

The latest contributions from the editorial work of ICE

Climate Security in Central Europe (Addressing the Challenges of Climate, Defence and Security Nexus)

Institute for Central Europe has completed a report on climate security in Central Europe, which was part of several months of work on a project fu…

Climate Security in Central Europe: Challenges and Opportunities – Summary of a Public Workshop

On November 25, 2022, the Institute for central Europe (ICE) held an online workshop entitled “Climate Security in Central Europe: Challenges and O…

A Time for Action and Alignment: Climate Security in Slovakia

Climate security remains a concern, but a tertiary one, for Slovakia. This is one conclusion drawn from recent interviews with various relevant exp…

They said about us

“Nowadays no country in Europe can pretend to be able to solve problems on its own. Every important topic in Slovakia also has its European context. I believe that the activities of ICE will be a good contribution to the understanding and unity of Europe. I have known Martin for many years and I know how important it is for Europe to be strong in terms of security and for Slovakia to be a stable and reliable part of it.”

Miroslav Lajčák – EU Special Representative for the Serbia-Kosovo Dialogue, former Minister of Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic

“With each European summit looking like a Shakespearian tragedy these days, bridging the gap between Western, Central and Eastern Europe has become a matter of survival for the European Union. In such a dire context, the birth of ICE is more welcome than ever. The Institute brings exactly what the intellectual and political debates in Europe desperately need at the moment: tools and materials to foster a better understanding across the continent.”

François Gemenne – Directeur de l’Observatoire Hugo à l’université de Liège et enseignant à Sciences Po / Director of the Hugo Observatory at the University of Liège and teacher at Sciences Po