Professional training - references

Summer School on the European Union

Organised by the Development Office of the College of Europe for Officials of the Prime Minister's Office and related ministries of Kosovo.
In December 2003 the College of Europe started cooperating with GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit) on a Project of Support to the Prime Minister’s Office funded by the European Agency for Reconstruction. 

One of the activities carried out by the College of Europe as a subcontractor for GTZ in the framework of this project was the setting up of a specific Summer School on the European Union for 20 officials from the Prime Minister’s Office and related ministries. 

Participants

Participants included Officers from the Legal Office supporting the Prime Minister’s Office and ten related ministries. 

All of them had previously attended an introductory training on EU affairs provided in Kosovo by the College of Europe in December 2003-January 2004. 

Programme

The objective of this three-week programme was to impart a general perspective as well as a specific understanding of EU institutions and policies. Practitioners, academics, and experts coming from the College’s network guided the audience in acquiring state of the art knowledge on European issues, underlining most relevant aspects related to the professional activities of participants and EU-Kosovo relations. 

Residence life could bring together the 20 trainees with participants of other training activities organised by the College of Europe (with links to web pages: Annual Intensive Seminar on the EU, George Washington University’s Summer Programme on Politics, Policies, and Lobbying of the European Union), thus providing an invaluable opportunity to mix with and learn from each other. 

The programme has been delivered in English, with consecutive translation into Albanian.

Facilities 

Participants were hosted in one of the residences of the College of Europe in the historical centre of the city of Bruges. All rooms offer 3-star comfort with the possibility to connect laptops or notebooks to the Internet through the College e-network. Residences also have large lounges with TV, common rooms and leisure facilities. Participants could also benefit from the large information capital available through the European Documentation Centre and Library.

Related activities
Two young professionals working at the Prime Minister’s Office have been admitted to the College of Europe to attend the Master’s Programme during the academic year 2004-2005.

In 2004 the College of Europe has also organised other specific training activities for the officials of the Prime Minister’s Office and line ministries, namely: