The 2nd annual #EUTrade Policy Day was held in Brussels on November 27th, 2018. The event took place at the premises of the European Commission. 

Styrian Technology Park was invited to represent the Maribor Development Agency at the full event, which started on November 26th and ended on November 28th.

Many were the speakers invited to discuss all about the current stage of EU trade, external threats and future challenges. Among these was Cecilia Malmström, who highlighted both positive and negative sides, in the hope to keep everything as transparent as possible in the eyes of the 80 young Europeans, which came from all over the European Union. She stressed the fact that on one side China is not playing by the rules, meanwhile the EU is finding it hard to cooperate with the United States when it comes trade rules.

Apart from the main trade policy day at the European Commission, the event involved a variety of workshops, which successfully involved the participants into different kinds of discussions on different topics, from brexit, technology, to multilateralism. STP took part and contributed to the discussion on the future challenges posed by technologies with the highest trade amount, for instance AI, Blockchain, IOT and 3D Printing. 

In the very near future, all of the participants will be invited to disseminate the outcomes and the learnings from the event within their own countries. 

The Kick-off meeting for eNEET Rural, funded by the EEA and Norway grants for Youth Employment, took place on November 12-13, 2018, in Varna, Bulgaria.

With the objective to support NEETs living in rural areas by developing ground-breaking eToolkits for both online and offline training specialized in the agricultural sector, the very promising Consortium members met for the first time to present the work packages, their upcoming tasks and to commonly agree on the plan for the first phase of the project. 

eNEET Rural is committed to deliver innovative training materials to provide NEETs with soft skills, while at the same time educate the young entrepreneurs towards doing business and set up their own company. An innovative ICT collaborative platform will be established for online trainings. Meanwhile, offline trainings will be performed by each partner within their own country. More detailed information are available here.

Youth competitions, mobility actions, annual seminars and much more will follow throughout the 3 years of the project, with a budget of €1.5M.