Who is afraid of Cyprus's EU presidency?

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Created on Wednesday, 01 February 2012 16:10

The aim of this project is to explore expectations of the upcoming Cyprus presidency of the EU Council in the second half of 2012. The accession negotiations with Turkey seem to be the key issue contested during the presidency and several member states including the candidate country itself have already voiced concern over the nature of the upcoming process and the capacity of the EU to act in line with its strategic and foreign policy commitments. Our analysis will explore the pre-emptive actions and coalition-building among the member states before the presidency, and further comparatively analyze it with the presidency's conduct. The output of the project will be a working paper based on field research and scrutiny of relevant European foreign policy documents that will explore expectations from the upcoming Cyprus presidency of the EU Council in the second half of 2012.

Europa Secura - Contest for Secondary School Students on Security, EU and NATO

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Created on Friday, 22 April 2011 13:49

Project Manager: Radomír Špok

Timeframe: annual project (from 2007)

EuropaSecura project is a competition for high school students about security issues, NATO and the European Union and their role in global security system. The first year of the competition took place from November 2007 to June 2008 and the participation was open to all students of secondary schools in the Czech Republic. The participants create teams of three. The competition takes place in four rounds. The national round is a survival course ensured by the Army of the Czech Republic.  The main prize for the best teams of the competition is a trip into the seats of the EU and NATO in Brussels. The aim of the competition is to resolve current political and social issues, encourage teamwork, develop students' soft skills (presentation, negotiation, working with information) and also promises an attractive element in the survival rate of paramilitary conditions.

All the information:  www.EuropaSecura.cz.

Partners:

Ministry of Defence of the Czech Republic

Donors:

Transatlantic Policy Forum

Details

Created on Tuesday, 22 December 2009 14:54

Project Manager: David Král

Timeframe: completed (January 2008 – December 2009)

Executive Summary:

The project aimed at the enhancement of the debate on a transatlantic policy community by bringing together scholars and experts from both the US and the EU. It delivered specific, policy-oriented recommendations on these issues to policy makers on both sides of the Atlantic. The experts participating on the project formed a Transatlantic Task Force, which was sub-divided in four different working groups created around the following topics: Energy security and climate change, Transatlantic market and WTO issues (including trade in agricultural products), Democracy assistance and promotion worldwide, EU – US co-operation in the EU neighbourhood (Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, Caucasus). Each working group, composed of 6 experts from the US and the EU on a parity basis, discussed, amended and endorsed a policy paper, submitted by the leader of each working group and containing the recommendations as to what steps and measures the EU and US could pursue in each particular policy area in a near future. The working group outputs and recommendations were addressed to a variety of policy makers and other stakeholders, namely the newly emerging presidential administration in the US, the team presidency of France-Czech Republic – Sweden, to the EU institutions (Commission, Council Secretariat).

The project enjoyed full support of the Czech Vice-Premier for the EU, who was the chief person in charge of the Czech EU presidency, which was to assure its wide policy outreach to the key Czech decision makers during the presidency term. The involvement of strong and renowned partners in the project assured the outreach to the key US, French, Swedish and EU policy makers.

Outputs: 

• Publication Transatlantic Relations 2009: A Chance for a Fresh Start?, including an edited transcript of conference contributions in Prague and the final version of the four policy papers elaborated by the Transatlantic Task Force
• International conference Transatlantic Relations 2009: A Chance for a Fresh Start?, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech republic, May 28, 2009
• Events in Washington, D.C, Brussels and Stockholm
  

Policy papers:



Donors:
Delegation of the European Commission to the United States
Office of Government of the Czech Republic
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech republic
German Marschall Fund of the United States
Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Prague

Finding Common Grounds - Rediscovering the common narrative of Turkey and Europe

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Created on Friday, 23 January 2009 13:23

Series of workshops was conducted in Bratislava, Prague, Budapest and Istanbul in the framework of this project. The aim of the workshops was to find out the possible contributions of the East european experience of transformation to Turkey and to what extent these two regions have commmon interests in the field of foreign policy.

• Publication Finding Common Grounds – Rediscovering the common narrative of Turkey and Europe
  

Research Center of the Slovak Foreign Policy Association (Slovakia) - leader of the project

Global Political Trends Center, Istanbul Kültür Unversity (Turkey)

Polish Institute of Internaitonal Affairs (Poland)

Center for EU Enlargement Studies (Hungary)

Queen Mary University (UK)

Hürriyet Daily News