UA Quest RT Steering Committee Press Release
October 11, 2007
The Ukraine's Quest for Mature Nation Statehood Roundtable Series will hold its eighth annual forum at the Ronald Reagan International Trade Center in Washington, DC on Oct 16-17, 2007. This year, the conference will be entitled "Ukraine-EU Relations".
The two day event will bring together government and key non-government representatives of Ukraine, the EU and the US as well as experts from the world of academia to examine and evaluate Ukraine’s capacity to "thrive alongside" its great Western neighbor as well as its readiness, if asked to join, to eventually "thrive inside" the European Union.
To facilitate the said examination, the event will run four regular sessions featuring eight panels, six highlight focus sessions, two working lunches and two conference receptions. In total, nearly seventy speakers are expected to address the conference proceedings.
Past participants of the UA Quest Roundtable series have included:
UA: B. Tarasyuk, O. Rybachuk, Y. Yekhanurov, A. Kinakh, V. Yanukovych, I. Plyushch, A. Yatseniuk, V. Pustovojtenko, A. Hrytsenko, I. Mitiukov, H. Nemyria, Y. Pavlenko, K. Hryshchenko, Y. Lutsenko, R. Shpek
EU & RU: P. Naimski, G. Jeszensky, J. Sherr, E. Koelsch, G. Burghardt, A. Gross, C. Hartzell, J. Steinoff, R. Kacer, Y. Liuk, H. Wujec, V. Usackas, M. Riekstins, P. Zurawski vel Grajewski, V. Igrunov, A. Lebedev
US: M. McConnell, C. Levin, P. Wolfowitz, J. McCain, R. Lugar, Z. Bzrezinski, R. Holbrooke, P. Dobriansky, D. Fried, A. Wayne, D. Kramer, C. Weldon, C. Smith, S. Levin, M. Hinchey, B. Taylor, C. Pascual, S. Pifer, W. Miller, J. Herbst, K. Smith, W. Courtney, B. Futey, M. Kaptur, N. Lowey, A. Cohen, C. Wallander
This year's event will feature Deputy Foreign Minister of Ukraine Andrii Veselovsky, Ukraine's Head of Delegation to the European Union Roman Shpek, Former UA Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk, Former Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Hryshchenko, Julia Tymoshenko Bloc Senior Foreign Policy Advisor Hryhoriy Nemyria, Foreign Policy Advisor to the State Secretariat of the President of Ukraine Bohdan Sokolovsky, Ambassador of Ukraine to the US Oleh Shamshur, Ambassador of Poland to the United States Janusz Reiter, Ambassador of Germany to the United States Klaus Scharioth, Ambassador of Portugal to the United States Joao de Vallera, Ambassador of Slovakia to the United States Rastislav Kacer, Ambassador of Lithuania to the United States Audrius Bruzga, Deputy Head of the Delegation of the EU to the United States Angelos Pangratis, Former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, Deputy Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs David Kramer, Former Ambassador of the US to Ukraine Steven Pifer and Former Ambassador of the US to Ukraine William Miller.
A Conference Reception will be held on the evening of the conference’s first day at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, hosted by Ambassador Shamshur. The UA Quest RT Steering Committee, representing the American Foreign Policy Council, the Atlantic Council of the United States, the Center for US-Ukrainian Relations, Columbia University's East Central European Center, the Embassy of Ukraine to the United States, the International Republican Institute, Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies Foreign Policy Institute, the Konrad Adenauer Stiftung in Ukraine, the National Democratic Institute, the Polish American Ukrainian Cooperative Initiative and the US-Ukraine Foundation of America, will host the RT Patrons Reception, the traditional final event of the symposium.
Ultimately, in providing the contemplated assessment, the forum should help clarify a larger issue to which the Roundtable Series has dedicated its time and resources, namely the pace of Ukraine’s endeavor to achieve “mature nation statehood”.