European Summer School 2015 – “Challenges for Europe” Report

In July 2015, EUROPEUM Institute for European policy organized already 13^th annual European Summer School program. For 12 days, we have hosted a group of 28 university students from 10 European countries, but also Brazil, India and Australia. Academic background of participants ranged from political science and European studies to architecture and biology, which provided for very interesting discussions.

The title of the 2015 program was “Challenges for Europe” and lectures tackled the biggest issues the European integration is facing.  The topics were divided into three groups - internal, external and economic challenges. In this system, students learned about and discussed several topics - rule of law, energy security, regionalism, refugee crisis, TTIP negotiations, banking union, austerity or security in Europe.

Besides the lectures and workshops, students also visited the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where they discussed the newly endorsed Concept of the Czech Republic’s Foreign Policy with Petr Preclík of the Department of Policy Planning.  Another field trip led them to the Chamber of Deputies of Czech parliament, where they talked about the geopolitical situation on Europe’s eastern borders with MPs Ivan Gabal and Ondřej Benešík. The last excursion introduced the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty headquarters in Prague.

EUROPEUM also prepared various free time activities for the students – we played beach volleyball, went dragon boating, visited opera, had a boat party or went on one day trip to Kutna Hora.

European Summer School program is organized under auspices of the European Commission Representation in the Czech Republic, in cooperation with Prague College and Faculty of Social Sciences of Charles University in Prague.

And what’s next? European Summer School will be back in 2016! This time with a title “Europe in Motion”. Find out more here.