On 24 and 25 February 2015 “My Europe” returned to its native city Brussels and welcomed the 60 students from Sacré-Coeur de Lindthout, Collège Saint-Michel de Bruxelles, Sint Guido Instituut and Regina Caelilyceum to the Belgian edition of our workshop. These two awesome days were held under the patronage of Herman Van Rompuy, former President of the European Council.

On Europe Day, the students listened and discussed with experts about Europe’s competitiveness in these times. The initiator of “My Europe”, Prof. Dr. Manfred Pohl, welcomed the students in the auditorium of the National Bank of Belgium. Alexis Brouhns, Senior Executive Vice President at Solvay, gave insights about the EU energy market while the Rector of the College of Europe, Prof. Dr. Jörg Monar, focused on education as a parameter for competitiveness. The financial crisis and how Europe is actually doing to fight its consequences were part of the presentation of Prof. Hans Geeroms, Adviser for EU Policy at the National Bank of Belgium. “I have never explained the financial crisis in ten minutes before”, he had stated, but, well – he did!

We were impressed by the questions the students had for the speakers! After a walk through the National Bank museum, the students had the opportunity to follow a panel discussion at the State Representation of Hessen in the evening.

On Journalism Day, we visited the premises of De Standaard where the students were introduced to creative writing and the role of media by Karel Verhoeven, Editor-in-Chief, Bétrice Delvaus, Chief Editor at Le Soir, caricaturist Lectrr and Bert Bultinck, De Standaard.

Thank you to our corporate partners Solvay and KBC Group as well as the Representation of the State of Hessen to the European Union. Our media partners in Belgium are De Standaard and Le Soir.

 

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