The Development Office has begun writing the script for a role play game for young visitors of the future European Parliament’s Visitors Centre. In a cooperation with Media Farm, a Norwegian firm, the College of Europe presented a successful bid to run an interactive multimedia game in the future visitors centre, which is scheduled to open its doors in fall 2009.

Visitors playing the game will take up the role of Members of the European Parliament. They will have to decide on fictitious proposals for European legislation in important policy areas where the European Parliament has a decisive say. Like in real life, time pressure, various requests from citizens, interest groups and lobbyists, as well as the media, are brought into the game. Arguments have to be won and compromises have to be made. The European Commission and the Council of the EU are virtual roles in a game that has the ambition to make the basic principle of co-decision in the Union understandable to young citizens aged 14 to 84.

All of this will happen in a specially designed interactive environment using multimedia designed by Media Farm. The Stavanger-based company designed and runs the visitors centre at the Norwegian Parliament in Oslo. “Minitinget” (or “the mini parliament”) has been operating for two years and is fully booked every day by school groups, practising their negotiating skills to produce national laws.

Based on the same technology and game principles, the European game will be more complex, involving all the Member States and eventually all official languages. It will allow players of all age groups to understand what is at stake in European politics and how important it is to look beyond language barriers and both cultural and political sensitivities.

A team at the College’s Development Office will be responsible for the script, as well as the casting for the virtual roles in the multimedia game.

The second in a series of EU Executive Seminars organised by the College of Europe took place on 28 & 29 February and covered Business in a Common Trans-Atlantic Market. The seminar attracted a selected group of participants from the private sector. Among the speakers were Ms. Petra Erler (Chef de Cabinet of European Commissioner Günter Verheugen), Mr. Peter H. Chase (Minister Counsellor for Economic Affairs of the U.S. Mission to the European Union), Prof. Sven Biscop (Egmont), Mr. Adrian Kendry (Senior Defense Economist of NATO), Prof. Stefano Micossi (General Director of ASSONIME), Mr. Jeffries Briginshaw (European Director of the Trans-Atlantic Business Dialogue) and Mr. Jan Muehlfeit (Chairman of Microsoft Europe). 

After the success of the EU Policy Workshops in 2005 and 2006, the Development Office and Dr. Carol Cosgrove-Sacks, visiting Professor at the College, started a new collaboration to organise and direct a series of events in the framework of a new Executive Programme in Brussels. This new initiative benefits from the support of an Advisory Board chaired by Baron Daniel Janssen (Solvay). For upcoming events and more information on the companies represented in the Advisory Board, visit www.coleurope.eu/executiveprogramme

The Development Office welcomes Cordula Singer as a new Project Manager in the project management team, as well as Juliette Coin, who joins the team under an internship agreement for the coming 6 months.

Different teams of legal Researchers working in the framework of a service contract between the College and the European Commission cover all official languages of the EU. The Development Office welcomes a group of new Researchers: Johan Jonzon, Alexianne Galea, Kalman Varga, Dora Kriston, Catalina Constantin, Natalia Skrzypek and Diana Lavrinoviciute who are reinforcing the teams in the offices at Riddersstraat 12 and at Verversdijk 9, the new College of Europe campus in Bruges.

The Development Office says goodbye to Ruth Seitz, Emilie Olsson, Maria Zammit, Catalina Dima, Robert Szuchy, Nina Miron, Inga Papierska and Egle Vaiciurgyte and wishes them success in their career.