This two-day pan-European Ministerial Conference on Information Society is headlined "New Opportunities for Growth in an Enlarged Europe".  Ministers from new and current member states, candidate countries and South Eastern European Countries will discuss and review the progress in the joint Information Society challenges for the whole of Europe.

Through the Stability Pact “Electronic South Eastern Europe initiative” or eSEE, the countries of the region are pursuing a program in SEE, aimed at fully exploiting the potential of information society and narrowing the digital divide with the rest of Europe.

Ministers of SEE countries will reiterate their commitment to the eSEE Agenda signed in Belgrade on 29 October 2002.  They will express their wish to be associated as closely as possible to the eEurope process, taking into account of their specific situations.  The common position of the Ministers of SEE countries will be presented to the Ministerial Conference in Budapest by the Croatian Minister of Science, Education and Sports, Dragan Primorac.

The Joint Declaration will be signed at a ceremony by representatives from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Moldova, Montenegro and Serbia,

to which media are kindly invited:

Hotel Intercontinental — Duna Board Room

26 February 2004 — 15:30h