Twenty-five young political and civil leaders from the National Program, Class 2011 took part in the 6th Summer University for Democracy, organized in Strasbourg by the Council of Europe between 27th and 29th June.

The main topic for this year was “Ethics and Politics”. More than 400 representatives from the Network of the Schools of Political Studies at the Council of Europe from Russia, Georgia, Moldova, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Romania, Armenia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Albania and Belarus took part in the discussions.

Thorbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe addressed the participants in the Summer University. In three days they discussed a large number of topics, among which ethics and democratic changes, morale norms, governance and responsibilities of business, media, morale and the power, etc. In small groups, problems of conflict of interests, corruption, the power of new media, state secrets and access to information and so forth were also debated.

Among the lecturers was Sasha Bezuhanova, member of the Board of Directors of the Bulgarian School of Politics and Public Sector Director for Central Eastern Europe at Hewlett-Packard, managing government business of the company in 27 countries. During her presentation she talked about e-democracy and different levels at which ethics in business and governance could be defined.

The Bulgarian participants had bilateral meetings with their colleagues from Albania and Romania and visited the European Court of Human Rights, where they met the Bulgarian judge Zdravka Kalaydjieva.

During their stay in Strasbourg, the participants from the Bulgarian School of Politics presented flowers to the memorial of Dimitar Peshev in the building of the Council of Europe and commemorated his contribution to the saving of 50,000 Bulgarian Jews in the Second World War.