For the second year in a row, NIS supported the Balkan Trafik Festival, the music spectacle which was held in Brussels from 1 to 4 May, featuring the greatest stars of South East Europe. The Balkan Trafik is an event not to be missed on the cultural agenda of the European capital as it features performances of major international artists alongside Balkan's living legends. NIS is the first domestic company to open an office for cooperation with the European Union institutions, so as to contribute to Serbia's faster integration into the single European market in the energy sector. In addition to Serbia, NIS has been expanding its business operations in Bulgaria, Romania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is the home of the most famous artists who participated in the Brussels festival this year. At the same time, the Company has been sponsoring local, national and international festivals for several years now via its corporate social responsibility programmes Culture without Limits and Cooperation for Development, thus contributing to culture popularisation in the countries where it has been developing its business operations. At the BOZAR Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels NIS hosted the Serbian wine tasting for the Ambassador in the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Serbia to the EU, as well as for the representatives of the Serbian Embassy in the Kingdom of Belgium and representatives of the European Parliament and European Commission. The domestic wine tasting preceded one of the main attractions of this year's Balkan festival - the performance of female singers from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia, Bilja Krstic, Amira Medunjanin and Tamara Obrovac respectively, entitled Femmes des Balkans. Nearly 200 performers took part in this year's Balkan music festival in Brussels. They included Esma Redzepova, known as the Roma Music Queen, George Dalaras from Greece, Jony Iliev from Bulgaria, Mahala Rai, a band from Romania, as well as some groups from Ukraine and Poland performing at the festival for the first time. Roma music and original Balkan jazz were in the focus of this year's festival.
