European integration in focus

Details

Published: March 18, 2024

Together with the Faculty of Law of the Master's degree programme in European Integration in Belgrade, the IRZ organised a study visit to the European institutions from 10 to 16 December 2023.

The eleven students and one professor visited the Council of Europe, the European Parliament and the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, the European Commission in Brussels, the Mission of Montenegro and the Mission of the Republic of Serbia to the European Union and the European External Action Service. (The Master’s degree programme is well known there, as both the Ambassador of Montenegro to the European Union, Petar Marković, and the First Secretary of the Mission of the Republic of Serbia to the European Union, Isidora Mitić, had completed this programme).

In Karlsruhe, the participants visited the Federal Constitutional Court to find out about the working methods and the jurisdiction of Germany's highest constitutional body.

The aim of the project was to familiarise the students with the workings of the European institutions through direct, first-hand discussions.  Topics relating to Serbia's integration into the EU and current proceedings against this country before the European Court of Human Rights were also dealt with in depth. The students also received information about career opportunities in these institutions.

The prominent dialogue partners also included lawyers from the states of the former Yugoslavia, such as the Advocate General at the ECJ Tamara Čapeta from Croatia (who previously also worked on behalf of the IRZ as an expert on the Western Balkans), the Croatian and Slovenian judges at the ECJ Siniša Rodin and Marko Ilešić as well as the Croatian judges at the Court of Justice of the European Union, Vesna Tomljenović and Tamara Perišin.

The study visit was made possible by project funding from the German Federal Foreign Office.