Summer Seminar 2006

In the year 2006, within the period 01-05 June, the Economic Policy Institute conducted the seventh consecutive edition of the annual Summer Seminar for Young Public Servants from South Eastern Europe “Preparation for EU Accession”. The training was organized with the financial support of the EPI’s traditional donors: the Balkan Trust for Democracy (Belgrade), the Austrian Embassy to Bulgaria (Sofia) and the Know-How Transfer Centre (Vienna). In addition to this, partial funding for the project was ensured from the side of the DSK Bank / OTP Group (Sofia).

The 2006th edition of the Summer Seminar was carried out as a tradition on the Bulgarian Black Sea coast, near Varna. The team of the project selected the four-star hotel “Laguna Garden” in “Albena” resort as an appropriate place to conduct the regional academy. Altogether 59 experts on EU affairs took part in the gathering among which: SEE participants, SEE/EU lecturers, honorary guests, academics, EPI staff, etc. The participants counted 28 people. They came from the ten targeted countries: Albania; Bosnia & Herzegovina; Bulgaria; Croatia; Macedonia; Moldova; Montenegro; Romania; Serbia and Turkey.

The following institutions/organizations sent representatives to attend the five-day long seminar:

- Austrian Embassy, Sofia;
- Center for Applied Policy Research, Ludvig-Maximilians-University, Munich;
- Council of Ministers, Sofia;
- Embassy of Ireland to Bulgaria, Sofia;
- Economy and Energy, Sofia;
- European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Sofia;
- European Commission, World Bank, Brussels;
- Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Brussels
- General Directorate for EU, Belgrade;
- Institute for World Economics, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest;
- Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Rural Development, Bucharest;
- Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry, Sofia;
- Secretariat for European Affairs, Skopje;
- Ministry of European Integration, Bucharest;
- Ministry of Finance and European Integration Directorate, Chisinau
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration, Zagreb;
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Bucharest / Sofia;
- Stability Pact for South East Europe, Brussels;
- UNDP (Bulgaria), Sofia.

The intensive agenda of the Summer Seminar combined a focus both on strategic issues and on specific topics related to the EU policies and processes. A serious part of it was devoted to parallel discussions in working group format that were followed by plenary sessions. The program covered the following thematic panels (For more details please refer to: Program.doc):

- The Process of EU Integration – the Experience of the Acceding Countries;
- The Process of EU Integration – Challenges towards the Candidate Countries;
- The Process of EU Integration – the Potential Member States of the Union;
- The Process of EU Integration – Decentralization and Local Government Dimension;
- The European Integration Process – Economic Expectations and Tasks;
- EU Integration of South Eastern Europe: the Business Perspective;
- The Enlarging Union – the Insiders’ Point of View;
- The Future of Europe.