January 1st, 2012 marked not only the beginning of the new budget year, but also the sixth year of the Bulgarian EU membership. Five years after the accession of the country to the European Union, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) set it as an immediate goal to re-direct the attention from the usual discussions on the absorption of the EU funds to the overall effects of the country’s membership in the EU and its participation in the European policies up to now, by focusing on the current and future positions of Bulgaria on a number of issues of national and European significance.

 

“Labour Market as Factor of Competitiveness of Bulgarian Economy” was the focus of the sixth from a series of conferences on competitiveness that the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) organized with the kind support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation, Bulgaria.The discussion per se opened Mr. Nikolay Nikolov, Deputy Executive Director of the National Employment Agency, who offered some recent data on the labour market status quo in the country.

 

“Business and the Society - Hand in Hand. Practices of Corporate Social Responsibility and Investor Relations in Bulgaria” – this is the topic of the forth  student seminar organized by the Economic Policy Institute with the kind support of the Hanns Seidel Foundation. It provoked great interest among students all over the country. As a result, willingness for participation in the youth forum declared more than 130 representatives of 7 Bulgarian and 2 foreign universities.

 

As a coordinator for Bulgaria of the Marshall Memorial Fellowship of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, the Economic Policy Institute hosted for a forth consecutive year a group of emerging US leaders. Within their 24-day program in Europe they visited Sofia on October 14-19, 2011 where they were able to explore Bulgarian institutions, politics and culture.