ICALP { the International Colloquium on Automata, Languages, and Progr- ming { is a series of annual conferences of the European Association for Th- retical Computer Science (EATCS). ICALP? was organized by the Institute of Computer Science of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in - operation with the Action M Agency. Stimulated by the positive experience from previous meetings, the guiding idea of the ICALP? organization was to keep and to enhance the idea of a parallel two{track conference with invited plenary talks. Similarly to the two parts of the journal Theoretical Computer Science, Track A of the meeting is devoted to Algorithms, Automata, Complexity, and Games, and Track B to Logic, Semantics, and Theory of Programming. The Program Committee was structured along these same lines. As a further inno- tion, ICALP? was coordinated with the European Symposium on Algorithms (ESA?) in such a way that both conferences took place in the same location with the former immediately followed by the latter. ICALP? was the 26th in the series of ICALP colloquia. Previous colloquia were held in Paris (1972), Saarbruc ? ken (1974), Edinburgh (1976), Turku (1977), Udine (1978), Graz (1979), Amsterdam (1980), Haifa (1981), Aarhus (1982), Barcelona (1983), Antwerp (1984), Nafplion (1985), Rennes (1986), Karlsruhe (1987), Tampere (1988), Stresa (1989), Warwick (1990), Madrid (1991), Vienna (1992), Lund (1993), Jerusalem (1994), Szeged (1995), Paderborn (1996), Bo- gna (1997), and Aalborg (1998). In the year 2000 ICALP will be held in Geneva.
