Central and Eastern Europe Development Initiative (CEED) is an open initiative and gathers countries from Central

Central Europe

Central Europe or alternatively Middle Europe is a region of the European continent lying between the variously defined areas of Eastern and Western Europe...

 and Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

, members of European Union

European Union

The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...

. CEED Initiative has been founded by Dr Jan Kulczyk

Jan Kulczyk

Jan Kulczyk, born June 24, 1950, in Bydgoszcz, is a prominent Polish business oligarch. He is the owner of Kulczyk Holding with headquarters in Warsaw, and an international investment house Kulczyk Investments with headquarters in Luxembourg and offices in London, Kiev and Dubai...

, Polish entrepreneur

Entrepreneur

An entrepreneur is an owner or manager of a business enterprise who makes money through risk and initiative.The term was originally a loanword from French and was first defined by the Irish-French economist Richard Cantillon. Entrepreneur in English is a term applied to a person who is willing to...

. CEED Initiative was created to demonstrate and underline region’s investment and development potential as well as its competitiveness. CEED Initiative sets up standards for regional cooperation and promotes values of free market economy, modernization, innovation and competitiveness. Creation of CEED was announced during the II European Economic Congress in Katowice

Katowice

Katowice is a city in Silesia in southern Poland, on the Kłodnica and Rawa rivers . Katowice is located in the Silesian Highlands, about north of the Silesian Beskids and about southeast of the Sudetes Mountains.It is the central district of the Upper Silesian Metropolis, with a population of 2...

 in April 2010. During the III European Economic Congress in May 2011, CEED Initiative has published its first report . CEED Initiative Report is an annual analysis on economic situation and prospects countries of Central and Eastern Europe. CEED Initiative report has been prepared by experts specializing in Central and Eastern Europe affairs.

Partners and co-founders of the CEED Initiative: Kulczyk Investments, an international company focused on gas&oil, energy and infrastructure investments; Lech Walesa Institute established by former President of Poland and Polish Nobel Peace Prize Laureate – Lech Walesa; Center for International Relations

Center for International Relations

The Center for International Relations is a nonpartisan and nonprofit, tax exempt 501 organization that publishes various materials about international relations and current affairs. The organization is based in the Washington, D.C...

 - an independent, non-governmental think-tank, dedicated to the study of international relations and those foreign policy

Foreign policy

A country's foreign policy, also called the foreign relations policy, consists of self-interest strategies chosen by the state to safeguard its national interests and to achieve its goals within international relations milieu. The approaches are strategically employed to interact with other countries...

 issues, which are of crucial importance to Poland

Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, Europe and transatlantic relations; Bonnier Group – an international multimedia and publishing company. The initiative is also supported by key entrepreneurs from Central and Eastern Europe

Central and Eastern Europe

Central and Eastern Europe is a term describing former communist states in Europe, after the collapse of the Iron Curtain in 1989/90. In scholarly literature the abbreviations CEE or CEEC are often used for this concept...

- Zdenek Bakala - Czech businessman and financier who co-founded BXR, Sandor Demjan chairman of TriGránit Development as well as Indrek Neivelt an Estonian banker.