The year 2020 was not easy for the CGYPP. None of the three seminars went as planned, but we were able to deal with all the difficulties in the end.The first seminar in March in Berlin had to be shorter than planned due to a dramatic development caused by COVID-19 pandemic and restrictive measures introduced on the border between Germany and the Czech Republic. The second seminar in Prague in September was blended when half of the participants joined our workshops and debates through online platforms. The third and at the same time the last seminar took place on November 11-14, 2020 only online.
Twelve professionals from both countries, Germany and the Czech Republic, participated through virtual space and came once again to share their expertise of relevant economic, political, and social issues related to this year’s topic Sustainable Business & Lifestyle.
The seminar opened with an introductory round and a debate with Luděk Niedermayer, Member of the European Parliament. The main topic was the future of electromobility in Europe.
Simulation of Council of the European Union took place on Thursday as a very interactive part of the seminar, where Tímea Červeňová and Jan Jakovljevič from NGO EUTIS demonstrated to our participants how the legislative process and establishing of the framework for achieving climate neutrality at the European Union level works and how complicated could be negotiations among the EU member states. At the end of the day, an internal podcast workshop was held.
Friday was the day of fact-finding missions. Participants were asked to choose from wide selection of interviews with interesting professionals, alumni of the CGYPP, starting from Hana Kořínková (E.ON), talking about the ecological innovations in energetics. Second possible dialogue partner was Tomáš Hájek, from Travel Agency Periscope, who talked about sustainable tourism after COVID-19. Libor Boček shared his insight on the sustainability of the Škoda Auto, while Michal Kümmel from the BMW Group shared his views on the future of mobility. The interview section concluded with Lukáš Pokorný from Recetox and Masaryk University who helped participants to familiarize themselves with the concept of community gardening on example of such garden in Prague. In the evening Cyril Klepek from Cyrkl joined for a debate focused on circular economy and Cyrkl Waste2resource marketplace.
Last day of the seminar, Saturday, started with the evaluation of results from ‘Sustainability in Practice’ fact-finding missions from the previous day and participants discussed various documentary movies and books related to the topic of sustainability they were supposed to watch or read before the seminar. In the afternoon, Zuzana Lizcová from AMO and Peter Lange from ARD, shared their comments on Czech and German responses to COVID-19 pandemics. Finally, in the evening, the seminar closed with feedback and wrap up session, where also next steps were discussed.
The program is initiated and financed by the Czech-German Fund for the Future. The online seminar was organized with the support of the Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung, too.
