In July 2006, the ECF launched the Mediterranean Reflection Group. This series of 6 meetings (Amsterdam, Algiers, Lljubljana, Amman and Alexandria) involved artists and thinkers and representatives of cultural organisations from geographies that share the Mediterranean expanse: Southern Europe, Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa. At base, the Mediterranean Reflection meetings set out to explore the political and artistic challenges of collaboration between artists and art organisations from the Mediterranean region and their European counterparts.

In 2005, the ECF initiated its first Reflection Group: the Balkan Reflection Group through inviting cultural experts - most of them speaking on behalf of a new generation of artists who emerged in the Balkans following years of devastating conflict. In May 2007, the ECF, in partnership with Bunker Ljubljana, organised a combined Balkans and Mediterranean reflection group to upack the experiences issues, convergences as well as divergences between North Africa, the Middle East, Turkey and the Balkans that are emerging from the practices of cultural actors working in these regions. This combined reflection group took place in Ljubljana over the same days as the Almost Real getogether. Although the meetings took place independently, there were certainly moments of shared lunches and dinners and screenings and presentations in the Bunker cultural venue. These occassions were a chance for particpants from the two different gatherings to meet and share impressions in more informal circumstances.