Western Balkan’s Regional Academy is an initiative of the Bulgarian School of Politics “Dimitry Panitza”. It is supported by the European Endowment for Democracy. The central theme of the Regional Academy in 2019 is „European perspective of the Western Balkans”
The European perspective of the Western Balkans is a strong, yet insufficient impetus for all to advance reforms. The Western Balkans has unquestionably high strategic weight for the EU, though the degree to which WB countries share the Union’s fundamental values and rules remains problematic. We believe that active young leaders, working to encourage the Western Balkans on their EU path, should be supported, equipped with skills, and benefit from similar recent experience of others from the EU, to form a wider regional community devoted to the European future of the region.
From 2003 to 2011 more than 200 young public and political leaders from Southeast European states went through the Regional Programme “Political Debate in Southeast Europe”. The goal of this programme was to promote a transnational constructive dialogue on common problems for the region.
The Western Balkan Academy 2019’s objective is to increase regional cooperation in practice and to reinforce Western Balkans democratic and convincing reforms towards the EU, by providing week-long intensive training and experience sharing to young leaders from the WB. Target group will be active representatives of civil society, political parties, and media from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and Serbia under age of 40. The program will build skills and knowledge of the political process, with focus on next steps in areas relevant to respective European paths.
The event is taking place in Sofia, Bulgaria, from 2nd to 6th July 2019.