On October 23, 2024, the international conference "Cultural diplomacy and the Balkans: Achievements and challenges in the present time" was held in the Panoramic Hall of the National Gallery - Kvadrat 500. It was organized by the Institute of Balkan Studies & Centre of Tracology at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences with the support of the Ministry of Culture and in institutional partnership with the State Institute for Culture to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria and the National Gallery. The event was realized under the project “Cultural diplomacy in the Balkans in the 20th and 21st centuries: Achievements, challenges, and the way forward”, led by Assist. Prof. Dr. Alexandra Milanova and funded by the Bulgarian National Science Fund of the Ministry of Education and Science, Official media partner of the event was the Bulgarian News Agency.

The Minister of Culture Nayden Todorov opened the international conference and emphasized the importance of the topic in the present times, in which diplomacy is clearly experiencing severe difficulties. He emphasized that the best way to overcome the many conflicts is by raising our own culture.

The Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Nevyana Miteva, greeted the organizers and guests of the event on behalf of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ivan Kondov. In her speech, she pointed out that cultural diplomacy is among the most effective, but also underused tools of foreign policy.

The Director of the National Gallery, Mrs. Yaroslava Bubnova, recalled that there is no museum that was built without the skills of diplomacy, the capabilities of negotiators and the basic idea that the world is much bigger than the place we are in.

The international forum brought together participants from four continents, most of whom are visiting Bulgaria for the first time. Among them are Andrew Manning, Director of the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC), Prof. Maryam Majid Al Saad, Secretary General of the Global Public Diplomacy Network (GPDNet), Aisha Adamu Augie, Director General of the Center for Black and African Arts and Civilization (CBAAC) at the Ministry of Arts, Culture and Creative Economy of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, representatives of the academic community, the cultural sector and private initiatives.