Minister of Foreign Affairs Titus Corlatean met Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund of the United States. The two men had an exchange of opinions on the topical subjects of the European and regional agenda, with emphasis on the Black Sea region and the developments in the EU eastern neighbourhood.
According to the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the representative of the German Marshall Fund (GMF) presented the main project GMF considered for the time to come and they discussed the possibility of a cooperation with the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in organizing some events of common interest.
Titus Corlatean said that Romania wanted a culture of the dialogue in the Black Sea region to develop, to which the frequent debates among the important players in the region, the representatives of the European institutions and of the academic environment and the civil society should contribute too.
The Romanian minister also voiced satisfaction with the support given by the German Marshall Fund in organizing the Black Sea NGO Forum, a successful event that takes place every year under the aegis of the Black Sea Synergy.
The German Marshall Fund was founded in 1972, through a German donation, as a nonprofit and nonpartisan organization, which aims to strengthen the trans-Atlantic cooperation referring to the regional, national and global challenges and opportunities, on the basis of the principles on which the Marshall Plan was initially created after the Second World War. Moreover, the GMF supports initiatives meant to consolidate democracy.
The GMF initiated the Black Sea Trust, which is headquartered in Bucharest, as a mainly American public-private partnership and has the consolidation of the regional cooperation, of democracy and the civil society in the states of the Black Sea region as its main aim.
The Fund offers grants to the various organizations in the region (NGOs, central and local administrations, education institutes and mass media) as part of the three financing schemes: civic participation, cross-border cooperation, east-east cooperation.
The Fund annually co-finances the Black Sea NGO Forum, which is organized in Romania by the Federation of Nongovernmental Organizations for Development in Romania, which, in its turn, benefits by the support of the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs through funds for development assistance. AGERPRES
