On 27 September 2021, the State Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andris Pelšs, delivered a video address to launch the Intensive Programme in European Law and Economics at the Riga Graduate School of Law. Over three months, the training programme will be acquired online by 100 young professionals from 20 countries and territories of the European Union’s Eastern Neighbourhood Policy region, Central Asia and Western Balkans.
The State Secretary noted that the programme was an investment in future leaders in Latvia’s partner countries, enabling young professionals to help better policy implementers, decision makers and negotiators. Andris Pelšs invited the participants to learn from Latvia’s experience of democratic development and eurointegration in order to jointly move ahead towards a more peaceful, prosperous and sustainable future.
The State Secretary drew the participants’ attention to digitalisation being one of Latvia’s priorities in development cooperation. Digitalisation and development of digital skills paves the way to a stronger public governance, he said pointing out that regardless of restrictions caused by the pandemic digital solution have made it possible to increase the number of participants eightfold.
Andris Plešs thanked Riga Graduate School of Law (RGSL) and its partners for their professional efforts to ensure the implementation of the training programme financed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from its development cooperation policy budget. Gratitude for co-financing the Intensive Programme was also offered to the United States federal government.
The online Intensive Programme will run for 12 weeks. It will bring together professionals representing public administration, civil society and the academic sector from 20 countries and territories – Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia, North Macedonia, Egypt, Jordan and Palestine.
Background information
The interdisciplinary Advanced Programme in European Law and Economics has been implemented by Riga Graduate School of Law since 2014, while the Intensive Programme, since 2016, in partnership with the University of Latvia, the Latvian Institute of International Affairs, the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, and the European Institute of Public Administration.
The programmes are financed from the development assistance policy funds earmarked in the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Contributions have also been provided by the governments of the United States and Norway. Courses under the RGSL programmes have previously also been supported by Sweden, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Switzerland.
More than 459 participants from 20 partner countries have graduated from the Advanced and Intensive Programmes since 2014. They are applying their newly acquired knowledge and experience towards the promotion of growth in their home countries.