On July 7, 2014, the EU Center of the Immanuel Kant Baltic University and RIAC launched international summer school “Russia and the EU: a Dialogue in the Era of Monologues” with participation of 40 students, master students and postgraduate students from the Kant University, MGIMO, Higher School of Economics and German, Polish and Italian universities, who focused on key noneconomic areas of Russia-EU interaction, i.e. European law, political aspects and practices of international relations, and the Baltic as a platform for cooperation.
On July 7, 2014, the EU Center of the Immanuel Kant Baltic University and RIAC launched international summer school “Russia and the EU: a Dialogue in the Era of Monologues” with participation of 40 students, master students and postgraduate students from the Kant University, MGIMO, Higher School of Economics and German, Polish and Italian universities, who focused on key noneconomic areas of Russia-EU interaction, i.e. European law, political aspects and practices of international relations, and the Baltic as a platform for cooperation.
Anna Barsukova, Director of the EU Center of the Immanuel Kant Baltic University
This year, the School has been intentionally made interdisciplinary. Whereas previously the law and political science students, our basic contingent, had many separate classes, now they have been brought together both for lectures and practical training, so that they could exchange skills and demonstrate their specifics. The faculty is made of 15 lecturers from key Russian and foreign universities. To obtain the Certificate and credits, the students will have to take six ample exams and do some field research including an expert interview with EU diplomats accredited in this region, city and regional officials, and local businessmen. The subject is transborder cooperation between Russia and Europe, with each expert suggesting recommendations and solutions to improve the current situation.
The School opening ceremony was attended by Alla Ivanova, Minister-Director of Kaliningrad Region Agency for International and Inter-Regional Relations.
Hans-Detlef Horn, Dean of the Law Department at Marburg University, Germany
I am most happy to be back in Kaliningrad to encounter you all during the coming week. As it goes, the EU and Russia might – might seems the proper word – face an aggravation in their relationship. In fact, the situation makes the Summer School subject more significant as people should find commonalities for dialogue and cooperation in any environment. Of special value seems our continued academic cooperation despite the political setting.
RIAC has provided two experts, i.e. Irene Busygina for basic lecturing and Anatoly Adamishin for negotiating practice.
Irene Busygina, MGIMO Professor, RIAC expert
I have been lucky to join Professor Horn in the opening lecture of the Summer School devoted to various aspects of relations between Russia and European Union. The School is traditional for Kaliningrad but definitely unique for Russia as a whole, since high-level programs on this subject are practically nonexistent.
Meanwhile, such platforms are getting especially important in bad times, when relations worsen or even run into conflicts, which means that both organizers and students are executing a critical strategic mission, working for the future.
Day one is not enough to assess the program, but the opening has obviously been a pleasure, both reading my lecture – I do hope it has been helpful – and answering clever questions and receiving smart comments. Organization is excellent, which means that the School is going to be of help, something to remember.
Igor Zhukovsky, Pro-Rector on International Affairs of Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University
One may hardly find a better place for discussing the current relations between Russia and the European Union. It is the Kaliningrad Region where one may feel the nerve, improve one’s skills in an informal environment, pick up fresh ideas and search for nonstandard solutions for seemingly standard situations.
The Kant University offers a platform for discussing all kinds of ideas on development of mutually beneficial cooperation between Russia and its partners in the EU, as well as Brussels. We have grown a new generation of scholars in the know of the complicated European bureaucracy and the logic of domestic policies in France, Poland, Germany and the Baltic states.
We are keen on training competent experts able to promote a better European environment that would promote sensible cooperation and prevent new curtains of iron, velvet or any other material.
Summer School at Immanuel Kant University
