Marshall Center Event: Security Resilience in the Black Sea Region
On 26th of June 2018, at Hilton Hotel in Sofia, George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies, Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany and the Alumni Association George C. Marshall Club– Bulgaria conducted “Security Resilience in the Black Sea Region” conference.
About 40 local and foreign security professionals from Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia discussed the strategic environment in the Black Sea Region and ways to be addressed the security threats and to be built security resilience.
The United States Ambassador to Bulgaria, the Honorable Eric Rubin and the German Ambassador to Bulgaria, His Excellency Helbert Salber opened the event as representatives of the two partnering countries which established the Marshall Center in Garmisch- Partenkirchen, 25 years ago.
The President of the Bulgarian alumni association, Ms Violina Kehayova expressed her gratitude to Marshall Center for the strong cooperation and opportunity for Bulgarian Marshall Center Alumni representatives to contribute to the discussions.
The main topics that were discussed at the event included: NATO and EU approaches in building resilience, crisis managements, cyber security, hybrid environment and fake news and good governance as the best policy practice to address all these issues.
Some of the speakers at the event were: Dr Matthew Rhodes, Director of Programs in Central and Southeast Europe, Dr Valbona Zeneli, Director of Programs in Black Sea-Eurasia at Marshall Center, Mr Jan Havranek, Policy Adviser, Office of the Secretary General, NATO, Dr Velizar Shalamanov, Bulgarian academy of Science and Minister of Defence in the period (August – November 2014), col. Orlin Nikolov, Crisis Managements and Disaster Response Center of Excellence, Dr Vsevolod Samokhvalov, Univeristy of Liege, Belgium, Dr Alina Bargaoanu, Dean, Faculty of Communication and Public Relations, University of Bucharest.