During the last two weeks of May, the ninth Structural Funds Training took place in Rotterdam. The first one was organised by the Region Strategy and Entrepreneurship Division of ECORYS already in 2001 under the ADEPT programme, under which also training in 2002, 2003 and 2004 took place. Since 2005 it is organised as MTEC course. In general, the course takes place annually. However, due to a large demand it was organised twice in 2006. It is given to fifty representatives of the public sector from Central and Eastern Europe and financed by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Participants of the latest training come from two new EU member states (Bulgaria and Romania), three candidate EU member countries (Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey) and four potential candidate countries (Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, and Serbia). Participants from Albania and Bosnia-Herzegovina took part for the first time.

There is a great lack of knowledge on how EU works within the administrations of these countries. This holds especially for the regional and local level and amongst junior officials at the national level.

The objective of this course is to train the participants in management of EU Instrument for Pre-accession (IPA) and Structural Fund mechanisms and to develop skills and attitudes necessary to play an active role in the development of national and European regional policies. An intensive two-week programme, consisting of a range of courses, study trips, a panel discussion with representatives of Dutch institutions, and an assignment fully reflects this. Consequently, all courses organised so far were perceived as very successful by both trainers and trainees.

The next MTEC SF Training is expected to take place in spring 2009. Potential applicants should come from public sector institutions dealing with IPA/SF at the central, regional and local level. The countries eligible for participation, as well as the overall conditions of participation, will be announced on the website of the EVD (www.evd.nl) in early spring. Therefore, we advise potential candidates for training to follow this websites closely and consequently apply for the MTEC SF training through the Dutch Embassy in their country.

For more information, please contact:

Viera Spanikova
T +31 10 453 86 54
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