On 23-27 June 2014 three representative of the Yerevan School of Political Studies participated in the first session of V4-EaP program initiated by the Visegrad School of Political Studies. The seminar was held in Warsaw, Poland. During the week-long program, 30 participants from Visegrad Region and Eastern Partnership countries not only learned more about each other but also improved their mediation, negotiations, political rhetoric and speech writing skills during lectures and practical workshops.

The VSPS-EaP initiative aims to promote the collective and individual V4 democratic transition experience to young political, social and governmental leaders from Eastern Partnership countries. The VSPS-EaP brings together 120 participants over 2 years from the EaP and V4 to undertake workshops that highlight the regions of EU integration, civil society development and general transitional experience. The participants come from the Network of Schools of Political Studies of the Council of Europe.

The VSPS-EaP program is divided into several thematic blocks plus skills trainings. Topics discussed during the session cover V4 transition experience, successes and failures in regional V4 cooperation, use of twinning as an institution building tool, EU decision making and lobbying, social media campaigns for political activism, preparing official correspondence, grassroots movements to political parties, youth political party organization, citizen diplomacy and civil society, role of think-tanks in public policy, fighting corruption and political transparency.

VSPS-EaP is a scholarship program, co-financed by the International Visegrad Fund and the The Department of Public and Cultural Diplomacy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland within the frames of the project “Public Diplomacy Cooperation 2014″.