9th – 16th March 2014

Students in European studies and their German colleagues will take part in a field trip entitled “Let’s discover Europe” from 9 th  to 16th  March 2014. The goal of the trip will be to bridge the geographical and academic distance to the historical events leading to the establishment of the EU by visiting landmark locations for the European history and integration. The students will get acquainted with the functioning of the EU today by a series of meetings with EU officials, politicians and educators.

In Germany the students will meet the Regional Chairman of the Union of European federalists at the Bergstraße and will hear a lecture on the topic of Transborder cooperation in the European academy in Otzenhausen. During their visit to the battlefields of Verdun, the young people will relive the tragedy of the First World War. The students will have the opportunity to see the Mausoleum of Douaumont, where the two Presidents, Helmut Kohl and Francois Mitterand, paid tribute to the casualties on both sides during their historical summit in 1984. The Museum-house of one of the “Fathers”of European integration, Robert Schuman, will also be part of our busy itinerary. Among the accents of the trip will also be the visit to the European Investment Bank in Luxemburg and a walk in the “European quarter” of the city, where the headquarters of the European Union Court is. By locking a lock pad on one of the monuments in Schengen, where in 1985 the Schengen Agreement for borderless movement in Europe was signed, the group of Bulgarian and German students will leave a symbolic track of their visit. The German MP Jo Leinen will include in his busy schedule time to meet the group in the Parliament of the Federal Province of Saarland.

The study trip is financed by the Programme of the German Federal Agency for Civic Education and the Robert Bosch Foundation – „Shaping Europe – Civic Education in Action“. The associate of the IECG Svetlana Kirova is a grant holder under this Programme. In cooperation with the team of the Academy for Civic and Social Education “Haus am Maiberg“- Heppenheim, she has participated in the organizational and methodological work under the project in partnership with the International Elias Canetti Society.