On Thursday, the 8th year of the three day long international security forum GLOBSEC opened in Bratislava. GLOBSEC is one of the top five most relevant forums in Europe and Northern America where international politics and security policy is discussed among top political representatives. Among the most prominent guests to the conference is Zbigniew Brzezinski, an acclaimed political scientist and former security adviser to the American President Jimmy Carter, the Estonian President, the Prime Minister of Montenegro, and dozens of ministers from Central and Eastern Europe. GLOBSEC 2013 is organised by the Slovak Atlantic commission.
The event is held under the auspices of the Polish head of diplomacy Radek Sikorski and the Slovak Foreign Minister Miroslav Lajčák. Altogether more than 80 panellists will talk in eight main discussions and four night-debates. The common strategy of the V4 countries, further development of EU and USA relations in the light of the economic crisis, and the current relationships between EU member and non-member states will be the key topics of GLOBSEC 2013. There are many accompanying side events to GLOBSEC – such as the Young Leaders Forum, off record discussions, and bilateral and multilateral meetings of top politicians and experts. On the other side, activists are preparing a protest against arms trade during the security forum. The protest which is supported by Arms Watch Slovakia, Food Not Bombs Bratislava and the Human Rights Institute hopes to divert the attention of the conference’s attendees to the Arms Trade Treaty recently adopted within the UN.
Katarína Richterová
