On 1 and 2 November 2017, four students from the European Horizons College of Europe student group (Elisabeth WEISSWANGE, Sean BRAY, Viola ZOLLITSCH and Nicolas GEUSEN) travelled to Prague to attend a conference "Europe and the Global World: The Future of (Free) Trade" organised by the University of Economics Prague and European Horizons.
During an informal meeting on Wednesday of both student groups of the College of Europe and the University of Economics, the students discussed the future of the transatlantic student think tank European Horizons.
On Thursday, the two groups participated in a full day of panel debates at the University of Economics.
Sean BRAY, student from the Department of European Political and Governance Studies, had a chance to be on the first panel on the future of EU trade. He presented his ideas on trade in an opening statement and then engaged in a debate with high-level speakers such as Jonathan FAULL (former British official in the European Commission), Ivan HODAC (President of the Aspen Institute Prague, former Secretary-General of ACEA), Siri Ellen SLETNER (Norwegian ambassador to the Czech Republic) and Christine KOVARIKOVA (Office of the Government of the Czech Republic), which are all College of Europe alumni.
In the second panel, which included more speakers such as Vladimir BÄRTL (Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade), Dita CHARANZOVA (MEP) and Ales CHMELAR (State Secretary for European Affairs, Office of the Czech Government), the students had a change to ask questions and afterwards network with the speakers. Not only the topic of trade was very interesting for the students, but also the possibility to talk to former College students about their career paths.
The European Horizons student team will participate in the European Fall Policy Convention (EFPC) of European Horizons at the European Academy in Otzenhausen on 10-12 November 2017 and from 19 to 21 November 2017 the Youth Summit on the Transatlantic Digital Economy (DEYS) takes place at the College of Europe, Bruges campus.
