8 April 2024
Advancing Legal Training Across Borders: ERA’s Management Board in Malta, Slovakia, Serbia and Turkey
Jean-Philippe Rageade at his meeting with Minister Maja Popović
At the end of January, Jean-Philippe Rageade visited Malta and met with key stakeholders, including the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Justice, Johan Galea, the Vice-President of the Judicial Studies Committee, Judge Joanne Vella Cuschieri, and the President of the Chamber of Advocates, Peter Fenech, with a view to increasing both ERA's presence in the country and the participation of Maltese professionals in ERA training.
A few weeks later, Jean-Philippe also visited major stakeholders in the legal field in Slovakia. Andrea Moravčíková, Vice President of the Supreme Court and newly appointed member of our Board of Trustees, was indispensable in organising the meetings, which included the Slovak Bar Association, the Judicial Academy and the Ministry of Justice.
At the Slovak Bar Association, Jean-Philippe met with Vice-President Ondrej Laciak and Michaela Chládeková, Director of International Relations, to discuss how ERA could make its training more relevant to Slovak lawyers. The Slovak Bar Association is already closely involved in some of ERA's projects and supports the European Young Lawyers Competition and the European Young Lawyers Academy, two of ERA's flagship projects focussing on the next generation of lawyers.
Talks at the Judicial Academy with Director Peter Hulla and his team resulted in concrete proposals for training cooperation in the areas of environmental law and language training, two areas in which ERA can directly respond to the needs of the Slovak judiciary.
Discussions on how the Slovak judiciary can better benefit from ERA's offer were also held at the Ministry of Justice with Minister Boris Susko, State Secretary Milan Hodas and Director General Michal Kotlarik. State Secretary Milan Hodas is a recent welcome addition to ERA’s Governing Board the Republic of Slovakia’s representative.
In March, Jean-Philippe visited Belgrade, where he met with Minister of Justice Maja Popović and Deputy Minister Branislav Stojanović to discuss cooperation between Serbia and ERA, including a possible future accession of Serbia to the ERA foundation. The meeting was organised by the Director of the Judicial Academy, Nenad Vujić, and the Deputy Director, Maja Prelic Simovic. Also in Belgrade, the President of the Serbian Bar Association, Veljko Delibasić, invited our Director to attend Serbian Lawyers' Day, which brought together bar representatives from the Western Balkans, neighbouring countries, and the CCBE Presidency.
Meanwhile, our Director of Programmes, Viktor Vadász, attended the Spring Conference of the European Young Bar Association (EYBA) in Istanbul, Turkey, in March. One of ERA’s strategic objectives is to encourage lawyers, not only in the EU, but also beyond current borders, at the beginning of their careers to increase their knowledge and involvement in the application of European law and to encourage them to be more engaged in promoting the rule of law and European values. One indicator of this is the cooperation agreement ERA and EYBA signed in 2021 to ease the participation of EYBA members in ERA seminars.
