The area of the Western Balkans has been, is and very likely will be a source of serious security challenges for many years that will come (political, economic, social, security, religious, ethnic ...). These challenges pose a serious problem both for those states/countries, for their immediate neighbourhood and for Europe as a whole. The intertwining and conflicts of different interests of other regional and global "players" in this area slows down the process of building effective societies and states based on the rule of law, equal rights to free and undisturbed life and development.

The pursuit for a minimum level of consensus on key points from the distant and recent past with the aim of building a sustainable and effective secure and stable future is the goal of these conferences. Encouraging open and honest conversations with as many stakeholders as possible creates the basis for seeking answers to the goals. In this sense, we sought answers from relevant and credible speakers who can offer us a framework for a clearer view of the truth about the processes affecting events in the Western Balkans. We have deliberately moved away from the political correctness terminology because such terminology often prevents us from perceiving objectively, completely, and reliably situation as really is. No matter how gloomy this reality may be, and often is, it is fraught with many other smaller and more powerful challenges.

Where there is no communication between parties who have different opinions, there is also no opportunity to find answers to challenges. The communication offered by this series of conferences represents an optimistic view towards building stable and secure relations in the Western Balkans for the benefit of these societies, populations, states. Building stable and secure prosperous communities in the Western Balkans should be one of the key interests of Europe and the world.

During the preparation of this publication we did not make corrections to the contents of individual presentations because we did not want to disturb or influence their originality. Only intervention in text was a integration (that was approved by them) of papers presented by colleagues Vuković and Milić during the opening session (thee: Montenegro) in a unique document that we are presenting here as their introductionary paper. Therefore, there is a possibility that certain irregularities may be noticed in some places. We hope that they will not affect what we hold important: the content that we have here in this publication indicates that there is a will, desire, conditions and opportunities for all parties involved in building these societies and states, to communicate together with the aim of finding sustainable solutions that will be in line with the rules on which the EU is based on. Only in this way, by accepting the perspective of EU membership, can the area of the Western Balkans move away from the prejudices and stereotypes that have dominated the area in political and public terms for more than a century.