European Fund for Balkans organized visit of young civil servants to EU institutions in order to exchange experience with Union's representatives and familiarise with political culture of EU members.Brussels, 19th May 2009 - In the period of May 18 to May 20, 2009 a group of young civil servants from Western Balkans will pay a visit to different EU institutions based in Brussels, as part of the European Fund for the Balkans' "Fellowship Programme for Young Government Officials from the Western Balkans: Supporting Excellence and Leadership in Governance". The focus of this Programme is professional development of young civil servants through learning and working experiences with their European Union counterparts by spending 3 months of fellowship in a relevant governmental institution in an EU member state.
In order to achieve the broader goal of this Programme and that is to support institutional reform in the countries of the Western Balkans, the structure of the Programme is comprehensive in the sense that in addition to the stage in the EU based ministries, it is complemented with an introductory seminar in co-operation with the University of Potsdam, a three days-long intermediary visiting programme to Brussels and a final evaluation seminar.
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Hedvig Morvai Horvat, CEO of European Fund for Balkans stated:
“With this program, European Fund for Balkans wants to strengthten civil administrations of Western Balkan countries by offering them opportunity to gain concrete education and practice. In that way we're creating a generation of young and successful professionals who will, thanks to experience gained from this program, help their countries on their way to the European Union.” [/pull_quote]
The objective of the visiting programme is to offer the civil servants the opportunity to talk with high-ranking representatives of the European Institutions and other International Organisations, learn about the current developments in Europe and to familiarise themselves with the political culture of these institutions.
During their visit, young civil servants were participating in following lectures: European Union alignment, Integration of Western Balkan in EU institutions and relations of Czech Republic, current chairman country, with potential new members from Western Balkan. They also had an opportunity to familiriaze themselves with the goals of future Swedish chairmanship and functioning of Belgium political system.
