VIEWS Are we hungry at all?  On 14 March 2003 in Skopje, an economic forum took place on topic “Economic Development of Western Balkans”, organized by the Economists’ Association of Skopje and in cooperation with the Open Society Institute of Macedonia Foundation. Representatives of the Government of the Republic of Macedonia, well-known economists, businessmen, bankers and representatives of the media and the non-governmental sector took part. Hoping that there will be a focused discussion, the organizers had planned the forum to begin with the presentation of the report “The road to Thessalonica – cohesion and the Western Balkans”, of the European Stability Initiative from Berlin, that is the executive manager Gerald Knaus. The report offered five concrete references that can be the basis for building a common strategy of the countries from the Western Balkans for their presentation at the European Summit in Thessalonica in June 2003. Briefly, the five references are the following: ·    Transformation of the stabilization and association process in a frame for cohesion policies. The countries from the region can mutually make the objectives for strengthening the economic and social cohesion expands on the territory of whole Europe, including the Western Balkans. ·    The European Agency for Reconstruction could be transformed into European Agency for Development and have a different mandate, while the Stability Pact can become an Employment and Cohesion Pact. ·    The Western Balkans countries can join Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey within competence of GD-Expansion. The relations with the European Commission should be expanded by the GD-Internal Affairs to all other General Directorates (GD). ·    EU can develop some new instruments for structural interventions in the Western Balkans for the period 2004-2006. The experience from the programs for pre-joining of the countries-candidates can be used for the sectors as: agriculture, environment, traffic, social inclusion and employment. ·    After the admission of 10 countries-candidates, the budget for pre-joining (3 billion Euro) remains only for Bulgaria and Romania until 2006. Therefore, a part of these assets can be used for well-considered cohesion policies for the Western Balkans.  After the presentation of the report, there was a discussion. Unfortunately, the topic of discussion was again “the old Macedonian pain” – what has everyone done so far and who is to blame and responsible – not paying any attention to the exposed references. In spite of all the attempts of the organizers to focus the discussion, the outcome was devastating – without any self-criticism and creativity, the ball was passed from one corner to the other, certainly with usual dose of sarcasm. A great number of reports have been written on the Western Balkans, but it is a fact that there are not many as good as this one. And when someone “chews up“ the things for you, and you, instead of only thickening it, add water, the question is if you are hungry at all. The only conclusion imposed in this forum is that either no one understands the European Union regional policy, therefore not even the references, or we have advanced the self-satisfactory listening to our own voice to that extent, that it is really unimportant what we say while speaking.   (Lidija Dimova is a president of the Macedonian Center for European Education)