EU4Youth scholarship recipients visit Lithuania

“I loved Lithuania. It was my first time in Vilnius, but I’m definitely going back. What I liked most about the city was its multiculturalism and the fact that Vilnius has always been multicultural,” recalls Narek Davtyan from Armenia, one of the participants of the study trip to Lithuania.

On 25 and 26 September, Narek and two other EU4Youth scholarship recipients – Aytaj Mohsumzade and Arzu Bunyad (both from Azerbaijan), along with their colleagues from the College of Europe in Natolin, visited Vilnius and Trakai. The visit was part of a study trip ‘Podlasie-Suwalszczyzna, the Belarusian-Lithuanian-Polish borderlands – coexistence in a multicultural mosaic’, organised annually by College of Europe Natolin in Natolin.

During the visit, students took part in panel discussions (touching, among other topics, security issues in contemporary Europe), became acquainted with the functioning of the Lithuanian parliament and had the opportunity to learn about the cultural and historical richness of Lithuania.

“I really liked the Q&A session with the Parliament members because they really motivated us to work more about EU and Ukraine case. They said that no matter what country we are coming from, we can work for the development of our countries and EU’s relationship after graduating from the College of Europe. It was very motivational part for me,” said Aytaj Mohsumzade after this visit.

For the participants of the study trip, the process of Lithuania’s accession to the EU was particularly interesting. “It would be good to learn more about how Lithuania proceeded accession process and how we can learn from that,” concluded Arzu Bunyad.