DO Newsletter: September/October Issue 2009

College hosts SD Worx Summer School

From 23-28 August, the College of Europe offered its Bruges campus as venue for a summer school by SD Worx in cooperation with the Universiteit Antwerpen Management School.
When the last academic year had come to an end, the College of Europe’s state-of-the art building in Verversdijk, where the Development Office is located, was the venue for the SD Worx summer course. While the organisers were responsible for invitations and programme, the Development Office provided all logistics. This included fully equipped seminar rooms, catering, access to the prestigious College library and general support. If you are interested in renting our premises for your conferences or courses, please e-mail us at: info.development@coleurope.eu

New generation of the Southeast Europe programme

The fourth edition of the ‘Southeast Europe and the EU – Leadership Development Programme’ (LDP) was kicked-off with a two-week summer academy in Germany in August. 30 young professionals coming mainly from the Western Balkans had the opportunity to learn more about the relationship between the EU and their region and to improve their communication and leadership skills.
The acquired knowledge will be of great help for the next phase of the programme in which five groups of participants will prepare joint activities in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Serbia. The last step will be a five-day workshop in Brussels with speakers from the EU institutions and think tanks focusing on Southeast Europe. Since 2006, the Development Office of the College of Europe and its project partners have been jointly organising this project (see also DO Newsletter March/April 2009).

EU negotiations for Belgian civil servants

As preparation for the Belgian Presidency of the EU in the second half of 2010, about 150 Belgian officials participated in a negotiations training by the College of Europe/Development Office.

On request of the Belgian Ministry for Foreign Affairs the training was organised as a simulation game on the negotiation practices within the Council of Ministers of the EU. The focus was on key issues regularly debated at EU inter-ministerial level. The role play game was designed by Mr. Alejandro Ribo Labasitida, a lecturer in EU negotiations and decision-making at the College of Europe and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, among others. As supervisors acted seven practitioners and six Academic Assistants from the College’s International Relations and Diplomacy and EU Politic and Administration Departments. The training was organised in close cooperation with the OVO-IFA, the organism in charge of the vocational training of Belgian officials at federal level.