EU Presidency Training - Hungary

The Centre for European Studies organized a special training for three weekends during the spring of 2009 in Hungary in cooperation with the Foundation for Civic Hungary.

The project aimed to train 100 young experts from different field of the EU legislation preparing the 2011 Hungarian EU Presidency. The participants, defined by this point of view, spent 3 fruitful weekends with improving their skills, deepening and widening their knowledge in EU institutional questions and in different special field of policies.

The first weekend, as the group was divided into 50 – 50 persons, was held in two section (April 4-5, 2009 and April 18-19, 2009) was entitled as the personal development. All the participants had to acquire the skills of communication, the improvement of teamwork and personal performances also, that are needed for the successful chairing of the working groups. The first panel was provided by professionals of a company.

The subject of the second weekend (April 25-26, 2009) was the technical side of the EU presidency. The profile of this part is the practical skills and knowledge that is required by the tasks of the Presidency of the EU. This part gave a brief overview on the relations to Brussels (the EU institutions), and the relation with the Hungarian government, the Hungarian administration. This part was provided by members of the European administration.

The last panel of the training (May 16-17, 2009) provided the political / professional knowledge to the participants with the possible priorities of the Hungarian Presidency. Those two days gave a political and professional point of view on the European matters with lectures of MPs and MEPs also, besides the professionals of the mentioned subjects.

The participants received the materials of the training in a dossier during the trainings.

After the last weekend the participants are getting organized into professional groups for the tutorial follow up. The tutor system is being built with 7 tutorial groups (lead by MPs and helped by Members of the EP). This system is the base of updating the knowledge on the different fields and following the development of the particular subjects. The group members will have the possibility to cooperate in relevant and actual issues of their fields of profession, and to participate on the study trip in Brussels organized in every semester by the MEP leader of the group.