BACKGROUND

 

 

In 1996, it was the first time that a Seminar on Crisis Management was organized with the name “ATHENA” and it was integrated “in the spirit of PfP” initiative of NATO. Over the years, the seminar enlarged its range of participants arriving to include also countries outside the PfP initiative and it was established as one of the main seminars of the kind, to be organized on an annual basis.

 

Having completed a decennial history as a specialized Seminar on Crisis Management, it has been renamed in 2007 “International Conference on Crisis Management” and was submitted under the authority of the Ministry of National Defence. Following this initiative, the “ATHENA” Conference opened its doors to academic personnel and analyzers of international prestige, being transformed from a purely operational-strategic seminar to an international forum of constructive discussions on issues pertaining to crisis management at a geostrategic and geopolitical level.

 

From 2010 and afterwards, it was decided that the above mentioned conference should be organized every two years with the aim of improving the monitoring of relevant issues and developments and achieving a wider participation of prominent personalities coming from Greece and abroad.

 

The qualitative upgrading and the promotion of the Conference has been continued also during 2011 with the establishment of working groups (“syndicates”) focusing on specialized issues, something that increased enormously the conference’s added value within the International Community, providing Greece with a strong “brand name”, equivalent to other important security conferences of the world.

 

In the framework of a continuous effort for the qualitative upgrading of the conference and its inclusion into the official activities of the Hellenic Presidency of the Council of the EU, it was decided this year to rename this conference “ATHENA '14 Security and Crisis Management Conference”, endowing it with an enlarged agenda oriented to the challenges and the interests of the present era.