Nickolay Mladenov and Vladimir Uruchev held a national training for MGERB

29/09/08

The national training ‘What I know for the EU and my rights as a consumer’ finished. It was organized this weekend in Ruse by the assistance of GERB – Ruse, on the initiative and with the participation of the members of the European parliament Nikolay Mladenov and Vladimir Uruchev.
It lasted two days and 65 members of the youth organization of GERB from the whole country participated in it, together with their Chairwoman Monika Panayotova.
Lecturers of the training were Daniela Penkova, Petar Nacev, Georgi Yanakiev – assistants of Nickolay Mladenov at the office in Brussels, Angelina Toteva – assistant from the office of Vladimir Uruchev, Reneta Rashkova – director of the Information centre of EPP in Ruse and Tsvetan Hristov – director of the Commission for consumer protection – Ruse.
On the first day, the participants got acquainted with main facts about the history and development of the EU from its establishment till now, with its institution and their powers. The accent was put on the European parliament, its internal organization of work and the interaction between its commissions.
The parliamentary group of the EPP was presented in detail together with the contribution of the Bulgarian delegation to its work.
The program finished with interactive training game, in which the young people, divided in teams, competed in answering questions about: Institutions of EU; Procedures for taking decisions; Symbols; Enlargement of EU; History of the European idea; Policies of EU.
On Sunday the training continued with presentation of the mechanisms by which the contact between the MEPs from GERB with voters was realized. The participants were informed about the way eurodeputies from GERB accomplish the election engagements. In this regard was presented the network of Information centers, created during the first year of their mandate in 8 towns – Ruse, Gabrovo, Burgas, Varna, Pazardzhik, Smolyan, Vratsa, Sofia. It was explained about their mission, goals as well as the particular activity. The youth leaned also that except for by their offices in Bulgaria, the MEPs from GERB got in contact with the voters also by their own personal websites and blogs.
The second main subject of the training was more interesting and provoked more questions. It was about consumer rights. In this regard, the legal basis for consumer protection in the aspect of the internal market was presented to the youth. They were informed in detail about the European diary – student edition of the European commission, focused on the young consumers with basic information about their rights and useful advice.
Except for raising the awareness of the members of MGERB about European Union and the work of the Bulgarian delegation in EPP, the seminar also succeeded in explaining the European policy for consumer protection – one of the most important EU policies. This was proved by the results of the test that took place at the end of the training. It showed how the participants in the training had acquired the new knowledge.