In the mid-1980's, Mikhail Gorbachev put forward the idea of a "common house of Europe ", thus opening new perspectives and hopes for the relationship between East and West.
Bipolar thinking of the cold war period, based on confrontation, became obsolete. There was a need for initiatives that would open up new horizons in the future.
Right during this period, International Centre for Education and Exchange Minsk was created as:
• a place of reconciliation
• a meeting place
• a place of cooperation and
• a "house in the common house of Europe".
IBB Minsk focuses its activities on a pan-European perspective, while supporting the development of independent regions. This raises the need for a new pan-European culture,
• in which wars are not permissible to be started and a common understanding of the problem of peace preservation is being formed;
• in which human rights are being respected and the constitutional state takes on value;
• in which people from the East and the West aspire to create equal social conditions for the development of personality;
• in which joint efforts are aimed at preserving the environment.