Over the years, the remarkable project: “A strong national identity – a strong European identity,” teaches young people to live in peace and cooperation, while sharing common European values. The 20th jubilee edition of the seminar is increased in scale.
Project participants (200 in total) are young people from our historical diaspora in Ukraine, Moldova, Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Because of the young people’s great interest, participants from Romania, Albania and Greece will also join the seminar for the first time this year. They are well familiar with the Foundation’s activities and they expressed a wish to become part of its projects for European integration and establishing a network of friendships.
The 20th edition of the seminar will focus on “Bulgaria 2017 – 10 years of EU membership, a period of challenges, opportunities and lessons learned” and will take place from 10 to 14 April 2017 in Varna.
Over the years, the initiative involved more than 5,000 students. The seminar is co-financed by the Bulgarian Memory Foundation (main sponsor), the European Commission Representation in Bulgaria and the Municipality of Varna.
The massive initiative dedicated to 10 years of our country’s membership in the EU will be attended by ambassadors, representatives of European institutions and local governments, NGOs, business and the media. The official language is Bulgarian.
Special guests at the official opening ceremony on 11 April in Grand Hotel Varna will be:
Dr. Milen Vrabevski – Chairman of the Bulgarian Memory Foundation
Ivan Portnih – Mayor of the city of Varna
Ognyan Zlatev – Head of the European Commission Representation in Bulgaria
Dr. Klaus Fizinger – Regional Director for Southeast Europe, Hanns Seidel Foundation
Bogdan Mirchev – representative of the Hanns Seidel Foundation for Bulgaria
The event will be attended by: His Excellency Mr. Stefan Gorda, Ambassador of the Republic of Moldova in Bulgaria and His Excellency Dr. Mykola Baltazhi, Ambassador of Ukraine in Bulgaria, Admiral Boyan Mednikarov, Rector of Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy, representatives of the universities in Bulgaria, public figures, friends of the Bulgarian Memory Foundation.
By the forum “A strong national identity – a strong European identity” that we have been financing and organizing with great pleasure for 10 years now, we build bridges of economic cooperation, implement the European values in practice by teaching young people to live in peace and agreement. We are in search of the common things together, we speak the same language and share the same values. We are trying to be the bearer of European integration in action. Successful people teach their formulas for success, we teach the children positivity and creativity and, which is most important, we meet hundreds of young people from our historical diaspora who bear Bulgaria in their hearts“, thus Dr. Milen Vrabevski, founder and chairman of the Bulgarian Memory Foundation summarized the organization of the 20th Spring seminar, Varna 2017.
