The second training day of the last course of the National Program for Class 2021 of the Bulgarian School of Politics (BSoP) began with the topic of Afghanistan. The Arabist Prof. Vladimir Chukov and the security expert Prof. Todor Tagarev spoke to the participants about the challenges facing the European Union and Bulgaria because of the crisis in the Asian country. After the lecture and the lively discussion that followed, the trainees worked in groups. Each of the four groups had to make a scenario for overcoming the political and military crisis in Afghanistan, taking into account the specific conditions provided to it. After Asia, the focus was on the Western Balkans. Assoc. Prof. Dr. Georgi Bardarov, Head of the Department of Socio-Economic Geography at Sofia University and winner of the European Prize for Literature, spoke to the forty trainees from the current cohort about the genesis and development of ethno-religious processes in the Western Balkans.
The second part of the agenda on September 20 started with the topic “Is the new agricultural policy fair? Is organic farming a priority for the EU?” The panel is part of the “Organic Agriculture Innovation Platform” project, in which BSoP is a partner of the CSRD Forum in Northern Macedonia, along with four other organizations from Serbia, Croatia and North Macedonia. The focus of the project is adult education in the fields of organic farming, marketing and product branding and is carried out under the Erasmus + program of the European Commission. Lecturers in the National Program on this panel were the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Food and Forestry Yavor Gechev and Borislav Sandov, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Environment and Water in the 46th National Assembly.
The day continued with the visit of Mark Nordberg, Advisor for Political and Economic Affairs of the US Ambassador to Bulgaria, and ended with a simulation of a TV interview and answer to a personal awkward question from the trainees.