From 14 to 28 July 2013, the Natolin campus of the College of Europe hosted a pilot edition of the Warsaw Euro-Atlantic Summer Academy (WEASA), an educational programme for policy analysts, advisers and experts from the six Eastern Partnership countries. The programme was founded in partnership by the Natolin campus of the College of Europe, the Polish-American Freedom Foundation and the German Marshall Fund of the United States.
The WEASA curriculum was devoted to the issues of systemic transformation, European Union integration and transatlantic relations. Its participants were 43 policy analysts, advisers and experts between the ages of 30 and 40 with a minimum 5 years of relevant professional experience.
The inaugural lecture was delivered by Mr Günter VERHEUGEN, former Vice-President of the European Commission and Honorary Professor of the Viadrina European University in Frankfurt an der Oder.
The WEASA faculty consisted of 27 experts with both practical and academic experience of systemic transformation, European integration and transatlantic relations. The faculty list included Mr Leszek BALCEROWICZ, Professor of Economics at the Warsaw School of Economics, former Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister of Poland, as well as former President of the National Bank of Poland; Dr Paweł SAMECKI, Director of the International Department of the National Bank of Poland and former European Commissioner for Regional Policy; Mr Gerhard STAHL, Secretary General of the Committee of the Regions; Professor Gert WEISSKIRCHEN of the University of Erfurt and former Member of Bundestag; and Mr Robert WEXLER, President of the S. Daniel Abraham Center for Middle East Peace and former member of U.S. Congress.
The Warsaw Euro-Atlantic Summer Academy was a two-way educational undertaking. The WEASA faculty not only inspired, but was also inspired by the participants who represent an up-and-coming policy community from Eastern Europe and South Caucasus. Insightful comments and shrewd questions raised throughout the Academy provided a domestic perspective on developments in the countries represented at WEASA.
