Vienna Economic Forum (VEF) is the annual, invitation-only meeting point where ministers, ambassadors and senior executives from Austria and thirteen South-East European and Western Balkan member countries gather in Vienna to discuss economic cooperation and EU integration. Run since 2004 as a United Nations-recognised NGO rather than a commercial conference brand, it has held a November date in Vienna every year since at least 2022, but no date has been published for its 2026 edition as of 3 September 2026.
Vienna Economic Forum (VEF) is an annual high-level dialogue, founded in April 2004 under the Austrian Association Act, that brings ministers, ambassadors and senior executives from 13 South-East European and Western Balkan member countries to Vienna under the motto "Economy Meets Politics." It operates as an international non-governmental organisation with United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) special consultative status and an entry in the EU Transparency Register, not as a commercial conference brand. Its flagship event is the November "Vienna Future Dialogue" forum in Vienna; the 22nd edition ran on 17 November 2025, and no date has been published for the 23rd edition as of 3 September 2026.
Not yet announced. As of 3 September 2026, neither the official events page nor the recent news page of vienna-economic-forum.com lists a date for the 23rd Vienna Economic Forum. The venue is likewise not yet announced; the most recent edition, the 22nd, was held at Raiffeisen Bank International, Vienna, on 17 November 2025. Two other 2026 VEF fixtures do have confirmed dates but are not the main forum: the spring regional meeting, held this year in Vienna as "Meet Kosovo in Vienna 2026," on 9 June 2026, and the 25th Jubilee Traditional Garden Party, on 19 June 2026.
Vienna Economic Forum, an international non-governmental organisation registered under the Austrian Association Act, founded in April 2004 by Ambassador Dr. Elena Kirtcheva, then Bulgaria's ambassador to Austria, who continues to serve as Secretary General. It holds United Nations ECOSOC special consultative status and is entered in the EU Transparency Register. President: Ambassador Dr. Emil Brix, also Director of the Diplomatische Akademie Wien. Headquarters: Wohllebengasse 12 to 14, 1040 Vienna, Austria. General enquiries: office@vienna-economic-forum.com. Day-to-day operations run through a small secretariat: Mag. Niko Petković (Senior Project Manager, Deputy Secretary General) and Irena Pal (Senior External Relations and Marketing Officer).
Not publicly disclosed; the organiser does not publish a headcount for the November forum. By role, attendees are heads of government, government ministers, ambassadors, central bank and international financial institution officials, and senior corporate executives from the VEF member countries and European partner institutions. At the 22nd edition (17 November 2025), confirmed attendees by title included Austria's Federal Chancellor as patron, a Montenegrin deputy prime minister, a North Macedonian deputy president, a Moldovan secretary of state, senior representatives of the EBRD, IMF and World Bank, and the CEO of host bank Raiffeisen Bank International. VEF's Ambassadors' Committee and Patrons' Committee draw specifically from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, Slovenia, Türkiye and Ukraine; the organiser states 13 member countries in total without publishing a single list naming all of them.
No 2026 speaker roster is published, consistent with no date yet being announced. The full confirmed programme from the most recent edition, the 22nd Vienna Economic Forum on 17 November 2025, is listed below as the latest evidence of the forum's speaker profile.
No 2026 forum has taken place yet and no date is announced, so there is nothing yet to compare. What changed between the two most recent editions was the venue: the 22nd edition (17 November 2025) moved to Raiffeisen Bank International, continuing a pattern of a different Vienna venue each year (Vienna City Hall for the 20th edition in 2023, the House of Engineers for the 21st in 2024, Raiffeisen Bank International for the 22nd). The 2026 spring regional meeting also changed format: rather than travelling to a member country as in 2022 to 2025 (Istanbul, Prishtina, Sofia, Chișinău), it was held in Vienna itself, under the title "Meet Kosovo in Vienna 2026," on 9 June 2026.
No 2026 programme is published; no date has been announced. The 22nd edition (17 November 2025), the most recent confirmed programme, ran a Ceremonial Opening the evening before (16 November 2025) followed by the main day: opening remarks, a panel on strategic impacts on the European energy economy, a panel on regional economic competitiveness, a panel on strengthening the European voice, and an awards ceremony, all under the motto "Economy Meets Politics: Strengthening the European Voice." Recurring themes across editions, as recorded in the database and echoed in official session titles, include EU integration of Western Balkans, regional economic cooperation, energy policy, supply chains, competitiveness, and the forum's own framing motto, "economy meets politics."
In-person only, held at a physical venue in Vienna each year; the database's event_format field records this as "in-person," and no virtual or hybrid option has been documented for any edition. A two-part structure, based on the 22nd edition: a Ceremonial Opening on the evening before the main day, then a single day built around opening remarks, three themed panel discussions and a closing awards ceremony. This matches the two-day duration recorded for the event. No exhibition floor, workshop tracks or delegate-matchmaking system is documented.
The November forum itself has no documented fringe programme beyond its own Ceremonial Opening the evening before. Vienna Economic Forum instead runs three other recurring annual fixtures across the year, separate from the November date: a spring regional meeting hosted in a member country, or in 2026, in Vienna itself ("Meet Kosovo in Vienna," 9 June 2026); the Traditional Garden Party, a June networking event now in its 25th jubilee edition (19 June 2026); and a Regular Board Meeting and Annual General Assembly (23 March 2026). The forum also runs a "League of Universities" initiative launched in 2025 with institutions in Sofia, Chișinău and Slovenia, and periodically joins other organisations' events as a strategic partner, as it did for a "Concessions: Opportunities and Challenges" discussion forum on 23 October 2025.
No public ticketing. Attendance at the November forum is by invitation extended to high-level political and business representatives from VEF member countries and partner institutions; there is no registration page, published ticket price or public application process.
Not publicly disclosed. The published programmes are built from the forum's own network of ministers, ambassadors, board members and institutional partners; no open call for speakers or submission process was found on the official site.
Not publicly disclosed. The official partners page lists current cooperation partners, members and strategic partners by name but does not publish an application process or point of contact for joining any of these categories. General enquiries can be sent to office@vienna-economic-forum.com.
Vienna Economic Forum uses "partners," not a tiered sponsorship structure, and its published partners page is not dated to a specific edition. As listed on the official partners page:
Host of the 22nd edition, Raiffeisen Bank International, is a founding member (2004) rather than a listed partner-page entry; its own holding company, Raiffeisen Holding, appears separately under Members.
Read from the partner and speaker rosters rather than from a published breakdown. Banking and financial services dominate: Raiffeisen Bank International (founding member and 2025 host), Vienna Insurance Group, Sparkasse Austria, DenizBank Austria, Raiffeisen Holding. International financial institutions attend at senior level: the EBRD, IMF, World Bank and European Investment Bank all sent named representatives to the 22nd edition. Chambers of commerce and employer associations from VEF member countries form the bulk of the cooperation and strategic partner lists (Bulgaria, Montenegro, Serbia, Moldova, Türkiye, North Macedonia). Energy companies appear at speaker level (Renalfa IPP, Wien Energie International). Government ministries, ambassadors and diplomatic academies are represented directly rather than through corporate delegates.
Not publicly disclosed. No accreditation form, process or dedicated press contact is published on the official site.
Coverage found during this research is limited and mostly organiser-controlled. The 22nd edition's own event page names Society Magazine (media partner) as its main media partner, matching the same publication listed on the official partners page. The same event page is linked to by sanusetsalvus.com, an outside site whose editorial independence could not be established during this research. Raiffeisen Bank International, the 2025 host and a founding member, published its own account of the energy panel on its corporate blog; this is host-bank content, not independent reporting. No coverage from a general-interest or business press outlet outside the VEF network was found.
Two tiers, not one undifferentiated body of "press." Organiser-controlled: Society Magazine (media partner) is named as the forum's own Main Media Partner on the official partners page, so its coverage is placed content, not independent journalism. Adjacent but not independent: Raiffeisen Bank International's blog account of the 22nd edition comes from the forum's host bank and founding member describing its own event, and sanusetsalvus.com republished or linked coverage without an identifiable independent editorial position established during this research. No coverage from a press outlet unconnected to the organiser, a host bank, or a partner was found.
Anyone seeking open registration, a trade-show floor, exhibitor stands or a call for speakers: none of these exist here. Vendors and startups looking for buyer meetings or deal flow will find no such mechanism; the forum is a closed-door, invitation-only dialogue among government and senior institutional representatives from a defined set of member countries, not a commercial marketplace event.
Vienna Economic Forum's core fixture is a single annual November date in Vienna, a slot it has held every year since at least 2022 (14 November 2022, 13 November 2023, 4 November 2024, 17 November 2025), with the 2026 date not yet announced as of 3 September 2026. Its official Strategic Partners list names other regional dialogue platforms, among them the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia and the Delphi Forum in Greece, placing it within a network of South-East and Central European gatherings rather than a commercial conference circuit with competing dates to track.
The main "Vienna Future Dialogue" forum has always been held in Vienna. VEF does run a separate, smaller annual fixture, previously called "Vienna Economic Talks," in a member country each spring: Istanbul (17 May 2022), Prishtina (8 May 2023), Sofia (22 April 2024) and Chișinău (19 May 2025). For 2026 this spring fixture was held in Vienna itself, as "Meet Kosovo in Vienna 2026" (9 June 2026), reversing the usual pattern.
Not stated for the spoken proceedings themselves. The Vienna Economic Forum website publishes in parallel English and German editions, and all published materials for the 22nd edition (programme, speaker titles, news coverage) are in English. The database record additionally lists German as a working language; no source found during this research confirms German is used on stage or sets out a working-language policy for the November forum itself.
Not publicly disclosed. No livestream, on-demand video or remote attendance option is described for the November forum on the official site. A YouTube channel (@ViennaEconomicForum) exists, but no confirmation was found that it carries full session recordings.
Not applicable in the ordinary sense: attendance is by invitation, not by paid ticket, so no refund or cancellation policy is published.
Not publicly disclosed. No accessibility statement was found on the official site, and because the venue changes each year and the 2026 venue is not yet announced, no venue-specific accessibility information exists to check.
Not yet answerable: the 2026 venue has not been announced. For reference, the most recent edition, the 22nd (17 November 2025), was held at Raiffeisen Bank International, Am Stadtpark 9, 1030 Vienna; the 21st (2024) was held at the House of Engineers, Eschenbachgasse 9, 1010 Vienna; and the 20th (2023) at Vienna City Hall. All three sit centrally in Vienna and are reachable on the city's public transport network, but travel directions cannot be given for a venue that has not been set.
Read the silence as a scheduling gap, not a sign the forum is not returning: the pattern since 2022 has been a fixed November slot in Vienna, held every year without exception, run by a secretariat of two named staff members who also organise three other annual fixtures, a spring regional meeting, a June garden party and a February or March board meeting. A leaner NGO secretariat running four annual events on a small public-facing team plausibly confirms dates later than a commercial conference producer would. Nothing in the sourced material suggests the 23rd edition will not happen, only that, as of 3 September 2026, it has not yet been dated.
Because the relationship predates any single edition: RBI was a founding member in 2004, its CEO delivered the opening remarks at the most recent forum in November 2025, and RBI hosted that edition at its own Vienna headquarters. On the official partners page, RBI's own holding company, Raiffeisen Holding, appears again under Members. A twenty-year founding relationship, not a one-off sponsorship, explains why the bank keeps showing up across governance, hosting and speaking roles at once.
Because membership runs through named heads of government, not just an institutional roster: the Patrons' Committee lists sitting prime ministers of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo and Montenegro alongside Austria's Federal Chancellor, and the Ambassadors' Committee adds accredited envoys from Bulgaria, Moldova, Slovenia, Türkiye and Ukraine. A platform whose patrons are current heads of government, not delegates or civil servants, is positioned as a diplomatic channel first and an economic conference second.
Official site: vienna-economic-forum.com (English and German editions). About: vienna-economic-forum.com/en/about-vef. Organs and leadership: vienna-economic-forum.com/en/organs. Partners: vienna-economic-forum.com/en/partners. Events archive: vienna-economic-forum.com/en/events. News: vienna-economic-forum.com/en/recent-news. Contact: office@vienna-economic-forum.com, Wohllebengasse 12 to 14, 1040 Vienna, Austria. LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/vienna-economic-forum. YouTube: youtube.com/@ViennaEconomicForum. No official X/Twitter account, Instagram account, dedicated event hashtag or RSS feed was found during this research.