The first annual Border Dialogues conference, a European forum on cross-border cooperation between EU member states, Norway and their Eastern neighbors, has been launched with a conference attended by over 100 representatives of experts and practitioners from the borders regions, as well as government representatives and a vice-president of the European Commission. The conference was organized by the Prague-based Institute for Stability and Development (ISD) together with its project partners - the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, the Institute for Trans-frontier Co-operation, based in Uzhorod, Ukraine, Regional Economic Development Agency in Kaliningrad, Russia and Jefferson Institute in Belgrade, Serbia. “This is a first regular, annual forum devoted solely to cross-border cooperation in the European neighborhood. It brings together all levels of stakeholders – practitioners, policy makers and researchers at local, regional and European level to promote an interactive dialogue on cross-border cooperation and to generate policy recommendations for decision makers in national and pan-European institutions,” explained Vazil Hudak, the chairman of the board of the ISD and one of the founding fathers of Border Dialogues. The project falls within the framework established by the EU’s European Neighborhood Policy (ENP). The ISD has been implementing the project in close coordination with the EU ENP bodies with the aim of providing the European Commission with “bottom up” input about key challenges to cross-border cooperation in the European neighborhood. Maroš Šefčovič, the European Commission’s vice-president and commissioner for inter-institutional relations and administration, during the live videoconference, has endorsed the initiative, saying: "It's important that we have such dialogue on cross-border cooperation initiated by civic organizations, experts and practitioners from border regions. EU supports an active engagement of civil society, businesses and other stakeholders on regional and local levels in the implementation of ENP vision and policies.” Other speakers at the four-day conference also included: Maroš Šefčovič, Vice-President of the European Commission, Milan Ježovica, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia, Pavel Klimkin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, Ján Hudacký, State Secretary of the Ministry of Transport, Post and Telecommunications, Slovakia; and Erik Lahnstein, State Secretary, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway.