Thursday, May 08, 2008

  The Albanian School of Political Studies held its third course with the title “European Integration and Transition” from 9-11 May 2008 at Mali i Robit Resort, Durres, Albania. There were 32 participants present in the course. The first guest speaker of the course, Dr François Bafoil, CERI, Paris lectured on the development perspective of the European Union focusing on the discrepancies between Western and Eastern Europe, the backwardness in Europe, limits and chances of development.  He extended his intervention on the impact of the Lisbon strategy and cohesion and structural funds. He raised the importance of  regional and local cooperation and the need to strengthen the capacities of the regions and administration. He followed the session with a workshop where the participants were divided in three groups representing three regions in Albania. The exercise required all the groups to prepare a diagnosis of the situation, an operation plan for development as well as the respective budget in the light of the European funds for development and local resources. The workshop was organized in an effective and constructive way and was very helpful and fruitful for the participants to develop their own ideas on policy development and European funds opportunities. The course continued with Dr. Alexis Vahlas, Senior Political Adviser of NATO Headquarters, Naples, Italy. His lecture was about the EU Common, Foreign and Security Policy. His very detailed presentation gave different examples on the EU Common and Foreign Policy in relation to various situations and realities in the international stage. His second part of the intervention was concentrated on the current situation in Kosovo and the role of EU and NATO. The last session was on EU integration of South East Europe and a debate simulation on the case of Turkey. The lecture in this session was Dr Judith Hofmann, Free University Berlin.  The first part of the session was focused on a short introduction on the integration process of the Western Balkans followed by a very interesting exercise in a form of a simulation debate on the question of Turkey's accession to the European Union. Dr Judith Hoffmann methodology was very effective and helped the participants to improve their team work, organize their thoughts and communication and develop a comparative analysis on the topic. The participants were very active and enjoyed working together.