Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Regional Office for Cooperation and Peace in Europe (ROCPE)

The Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES) is the oldest political foundation in Germany, with a rich tradition in Social Democracy dating back to its founding in 1925. The FES owes its formation and its mission to the political legacy of its namesake Friedrich Ebert, the first democratically elected German President. The work of our political foundation focuses on the core ideas and values of Social Democracy – freedom, justice and solidarity. As a non-profit institution, we organize our work autonomously and independently.

We promote, in the field of international relations
• a free society, based on the values of solidarity, offering all citizens the same opportunities to participate on politics, economy, society and culture, regardless of their origin, sex or religion 
• a lively and strong democracy
• peace and social progress in Europe and in the world
• international cooperation: with our international network of offices in more than 100 countries, we support a policy for peaceful cooperation and human rights.

The goal of the Regional Office for Cooperation and Peace in Europe (ROCPE) of the FES in Vienna is to come to terms with the challenges of peace and security in Europe since the collapse of the Soviet Union a quarter of a century ago. These issues should be discussed primarily with the countries of Eastern Europe – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine – and with Russia, as well as with the countries of the EU and with the US. The security order of Europe, based until recently on the Helsinki Final Act (1975) and the Paris Charter (1990), is under threat. This is a result of different perceptions of the development of international relations and threats over the last 25 years, resulting in divergent interests among the various states.

For these reasons, ROCPE supports the revival of a peace and security dialogue and the development of new concepts in the spirit of solution-oriented policy. The aim is to bring scholars and politicians from Eastern Europe, Russia, the EU and the US together to develop a common approach to tackle the challenges, to reduce tensions and to aim towards conflict resolution. It is our belief that organizations such as the FES have the responsibility to come up with new ideas and to supply them into the political process in Europe.

We support the following activities:

- Regional and international meetings for developing new concepts on cooperation and peace in Europe

- A regional network of young professionals in the field of cooperation and peace in Europe

- Cooperation with the OSCE in the three dimensions, the politico-military, the economic and the human.

Contact: 
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung
Regional Office for Cooperation and Peace in Europe
Reichsratsstr. 13/5
A-1010 Vienna
https://www.fes-vienna.org/

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Dr. Reinhard Krumm, born in Hamburg, Germany, received his MA in Russian History from the University of Hamburg in 1989, and his PhD from Regensburg University, Germany in 2003, where he has been a lecturer in Russian History since 2008. He holds an honorary professorship from the department of Political Science at Moscow State University. From 1991 to 1998 he worked as a journalist in the former Soviet Union, serving as the Moscow correspondent of Der Spiegel magazine from 1996 to 1998.

He joined the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung in 2002, serving as the Head of the Regional Central Asian office in Tashkent from 2003 to 2007 and as the Head of the Russian office in Moscow from 2007 to 2012. From 2012 to 2016 he led the Department of Central and Eastern Europe, based in Berlin. Currently he serves in Vienna as the Head of the Regional Office for Cooperation and Peace in Europe. The cooperation with the OSCE is one of the pillars of the work of the office. Together with Sergei Medvedev and Hans-Henning Schröder he co-authored the publication “Constructing Identities in Europe: German and Russian Perspectives”, Berlin 2012.