GLOBAL SECURITY ENVIRONMENT | Today, the global security environment is more complex and less unpredictable. New actors in the international arena are raising and untraditional non-state actors are affecting the security more than even before. Global geopolitical shifts, but also new asymmetrical challenges such terrorism, cyber defence, proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, illegal migration and others are an important elements of GLOBSEC debates.

EUROPEAN ORDER AND FOREIGN POLICY | Questions of European order, its institutions and the most pressing issues of foreign policy are an inherent part of the Bratislava Forum. Given the different political positions of its member states, the European Union was often unable to speak by one voice, be it the Union’s approach to Russia, energy issues, policy towards China or Middle East, or even its relations to the United States. The Lisbon Treaty has closed a difficult decade of arguing over the EU’s internal organisation structures and functioning. The structure is set; time has come to focus on the content.

GLOBAL ECONOMY | Consequences of the economic crisis remain immense and long-lasting. The last crisis takes place in a multipolar and globalized world that is more interdependent than ever before. Not only the crisis itself, but also its consequences can be exported and may have a huge impact on the global economy and security, and the redistribution of power. The movement towards market liberalisation has suffered a serious blow and many governments have responded with a new inclination for intervention, reregulation and state protectionism. This crisis has accelerated the relative decline of the “Western” global leadership which may have broader geopolitical consequences.

REGIONAL COOPERATION | GLOBSEC is an important platform projecting the Central European interests in the broader transatlantic community. As the leading annual forum in the region, it puts the topics of Visegrad cooperation or broader Central European interest on the agenda.