Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENAA)

Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENAA) is an NGO and think tank in the field of security policy that provides research and training programmes for representatives of civil society, young professionals, policy makers and governmental staff. The CENAA staff consists of research fellows focused on external security issues (e.g. NATO, terrorism, European security and defence policy etc.) and increasingly also on new security threats in terms of internal security, such as extremism, radicalisation, anti-racism and anti-discrimination work with reference to Roma and Hungarian minorities and social research.

Since the main internal security issue in the country and neighbouring regions is extreme right-wing/neo-Nazi groups and since the societal mainstreaming of such extremism seems imminent, CENAA is about to devel-op awareness raising and prevent agendas and seeks to establish close cooperation with local grass-roots organisations. Adding to the challenge of right-wing extremism in rural areas is the recruitment of the coun-try's numerous army veterans into paramilitary extremist groups.

A particularly promising aspect of these activities might be that CENAA is an international research organisation based in the country's capital that is now starting to interact with local practitioners in rural areas on concrete questions of methodology, approach and strategy.

Presently CENAA is starting its first regional participatory project in local monitoring, awareness and preven-tion work in a region that is highly affected by right-wing extremism and ethnic friction, working with commu-nities, schools, municipal staff and police forces. CENAA is considering to develop a new concept of bottom-up cooperation with civil society and grass-roots practitioners on extremist issues.

Contact details:

Email: vicenova@cenaa.org