Photo: Ian Willoughby, Radio Prague International
A group of nine young people from mainly Eastern European states – including Georgia, Albania, Ukraine and Serbia – are currently in Czechia at the invitation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under a scheme to establish ties with high-flyers in the region. And some of the participants in the Duke Wenceslas Future Leaders Programme – Ani Khachatryan from Armenia, Timur Vilic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia’s Grigol Gegelia – came into our studios during a visit to Czech Radio.
Khachatryan: “I’m trained as a diplomat. I work currently for the European Union and in strategic communication and public diplomacy for the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood. For seven years I have also worked for the public broadcaster of Armenia, serving first as a senior international officer for the public TV company and then as PR and communications manager of the council of the public broadcaster.”
How about you Timur? What’s your background?
Vilic: “I am currently the president of a local youth forum of Naša stranka, which is a social-liberal party from Bosnia and Herzegovina. We are rather small, not more than 10 percent of the vote, but we believe that we are bringing a new vision to our country, for Euro-Atlantic integration. I myself work as a translator currently. I studied Italian and Persian; I’m interested in languages, beside politics. But politics is something that I believe more young people should get involved in in Bosnia, because the situation is quite complicated and we need fresher views, fresher ideas.”
And Grigol, where are you from and what do you do?
Gegelia: “I’m from Georgia. I’m an opposition politician. I work on foreign relations and I’m the foreign secretary of a liberal centrist party called Lelo for Georgia. I’m one of the people engaged in trying to revitalise Georgian democracy, because we are currently run by an oligarch and his government. He is officially and formally pro-EU, but in terms of values, in terms of the set of ideals that they have, they are very far from the European ideal to which 90 percent of Georgians aspire. So as a citizen and as a politician I find it my mission to deliver my country from this political turmoil and to bring as much prosperity and safety to my people as possible. I’m really happy to be doing international relations, because that always brings me into the company of very nice and interesting people, like my colleagues here, like all our colleagues from Czechia. I’m very happy to be here and, again, to be thinking of how better to deliver my country away from these existential problems and security threats that we have, coming from Russia – which you, the people of Czechia, understand so well – and to ensure safety.”
See the rest here.
Author: Ian Willoughby