President Gjorge Ivanov, accompanied by Foreign Minister Nikola Poposki, will attend the 49th Munich Security Conference on February 1-3.
Ivanov is scheduled to address the session on Security and Stability in Southeastern Europe and the Caucasus, which is to be chaired by Martti Ahtisaari - the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Finland.
This year's MSC agenda includes debates on the future of Euro-Atlantic security community, as well as of the European defence; rising powers and global governance; cyber security crime prevention; Mali, Syria, and beyond: dealing with the current crises; the Iranian question and the balance of power in the region.
The annual conference will bring together over 130 Heads of State, Government, Foreign Affairs and Defence ministers, as well as senior figures from around the world to engage in an intensive debate on current and future security challenges. The list of participants, inter alia, includes NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, US Vice-President Joe Biden, EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton and European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso.
MSC has a long tradition and over the past decades has become a not-to-be-missed event in the field of international security policy.
Founded in 1963 as "Wehrkunde Conference," the MSC topics have developed under the auspices of its chairman of more than three decades, the German publisher Ewald von Kleist.
From 1999 onwards, the conference, by then hosted by Horst Teltschik, increasingly involved Central and Eastern European as well as Asian countries and business representatives. Since 2008 Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger has been chairman of the conference, which under his leadership will focus in particular on future security challenges in line with the concept of "networked security". With the Munich Young Leaders initiative the conference also involves the future security community in the debate.
On the event's sidelines, President Ivanov and FM Poposki will hold bilateral meetings with senior officals of international organizations and their colleagues.
