In our parliamentary democracies, we need as many people as possible to participate. We need people who keep up to date politically and go to the polls. We need people who get involved in parties and thus enable a democratic competition of political ideas. We need people who condense opinions in NGOs, think tanks, clubs and associations, make them visible and enable a public debate that reflects the diverse interests and views in our society. We need journalists who see themselves as the "fourth estate", who process information reliably, who look and stay on top of things.
What we are working on in 2025:
As part of our ‘Political Lab', we bring together people from politics, academia, think tanks and the media to examine current topics that we believe are neglected in public discourse in a small group of 12-15 people in an intensive, interdisciplinary and application-orientated way. In a political laboratory, for example, we want to dedicate ourselves to a new focus group study that shows where Romanians would like to see political priorities set in the coming years.
With our ‘Polit Hub’, we offer training courses and seminars on political communication. We support junior staff from the Romanian EPP member parties in developing political skills and in developing their political profile. In particular, we also support women, local and regional politicians in the Romanian EPP member parties. Our training programmes are also aimed at employees in state institutions. We work with the Democratic Forum of Germans in Romania in a special programme.
We would like to see a broad bridge of communication between Romania and Germany. That is why we also support many dialogue programmes for politicians from the EPP parties in both countries on a wide range of topics. These programmes focus on European, foreign and security policy as well as agricultural policy. We regularly publish country reports on changing topics and are happy to provide briefings for visitor groups. We communicate our activities and positions via our various social media channels.
With our scholarship programme ‘Fast Track for Future Community Leaders’ (‘Trackies’ for short), we support young Romanian professionals in developing an active socio-political role in and for Romania. As part of our ‘Future Camp’, we discuss how young Romanians imagine the political future of their country. As part of our ‘Young European Fellowship’, we also invite other young Europeans to join us. We exchange ideas with teachers about democracy education in Romanian schools. We are also happy to support young people from Romania and Germany as part of our various internship programmes.
