Although facts and prospects with regard to global changes are in the focus of international research and politics, however the mainstream research of well established institutions, as well as European mitigation policy handle the specific problems of continental Southeast Europe as low priority, marginal issues. It should be however considered, that: 
climatic forecasts for SE Europe show higher uncertainties and processes, which are displaying trends different or even opposite to western or north European climatic forecasts,
there are extensive plains in the region which are situated in a broad climatic and ecological transition zone (ecotone) towards steppes and arid lands. The vulnerability of this region to climatic changes is high,
the decline of vitality and stability of vegetation zones, especially forests, in this region may generate ecologically harmful processes (degradation, aridification, oxidation of organic carbon stored in ecosystems etc.),
the region is densely populated, and plays an important role in food production and industry, at the same time the economical and social restructuring following the political transition has not reached a stabilization phase yet. These facts may enhance expected socioeconomic consequences of changes considerably,
most of the region is easily accessible and has been under extensive land use for a long period, which renders potentially advantageous natural processes of adaptation to chnages disfunctional. At the same time, this fact offers the possibility of applying planned, large-scale measures to support natural processes by human interference.
The above problems are common all over Southeast Europe. This region is still in a transitory phase with partly negative social and economic changes. The communication and cooperation of the numerous, relatively small nations of the region is traditionally underdeveloped. Initiatives to promote collaboration in adaptation to climate change would therefore benefit the whole region.
A weak point of modelling climate and its effects in the area is the uncertainty in assesssing the interaction between the terrestric vegetation cover (first of all forests) and land use and of tropospheric atmospheric processes. The vegetation cover has been introduced into climate models very recently and in particular, data about forests - especially on forests in the non-boreal, Southeast European zone - are scarce. The improvement of estimated parameters of matter flux (such as carbon and water) and energy cycles is therefore an important task for research.

Sopron, August 2008
Prof. Csaba Mátyás