Black Sea region and Balkans – together in Erasmus+ (13-15.08, Bulgaria)
13-15 August 2025, Burgas, Bulgaria. National Erasmus+ Office – Ukraine team: Svitlana Shytikova and Zhanna Talanova, took part in the International TCA Conference for Black Sea region and Balkans – together in “Erasmus+”, organised by the Bulgarian National Agency – The Human Resources Development Centre (HRDC). TCA is a Training and Cooperation Activity, initiated by National Erasmus+ Agencies on different topics and in different formats.
The Managing Director of the Human Resources Development Center, Mr. Nikolay Spasov, and the Deputy Mayor of Burgas Municipality, Mr. Mihail Nenov warmly welcomed the Conference participants. They set up the key spirit of the event and the objectives to be achieved. In their opening remarks, they underscored the need to strengthen societal bonds and shared identity and to foster collaborative relationships among nations in two distinct geographic areas. They confirmed the meaning of building and maintaining sustainable human bridges for the future of peace and good neighbourly relations.
This event, according to Nikolay Spasov, Director of the Bulgarian Erasmus+ National Agency: “As we face global challenges, our commitment to building strong regional ties through education programmes becomes more crucial than ever. This conference is a step toward a more connected, resilient, and impactful future.”
The organisation team prepared different activities lead by the moderator (Dr. Liliya Elenkova, PhD) including presentation, working group discussions and networking opportunities as well as possibility to learn culture of the city and its history.
The participating countries included representatives from Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Serbia, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Georgia, Moldova, Azerbaijan.
During the event the National Erasmus+ Agencies and Offices from the Black Sea and Balkans Regions had the opportunity to share their experience in implementing the Erasmus+ Programmes in their countries, priorities of activities and exchange best practices on international education initiatives.
NEO – Ukraine team presented the specifics and status of implementation of Erasmus+ during martial law, key priorities for cooperation and best practices.
The joint activities during working groups helped to learn the expertise of each country, discuss and co-create the priorities for the new period of the Programme, joint events for capacity building of NEOs, key focus for the NAs and NEOs activities, target audience coverage, partnership search as well as the challenges and solutions in the transition period from Partner Country to Programme Country Associated to Erasmus+. The networking sessions provided possibility to discuss cooperation ideas and prospects.
The calendar of joint events is in preparation and the developed recommendations will be shared with the relevant authorities.
Special thanks to the TCA organisation team of HRDC for hard work to make the event happen in the friendly and cooperative atmosphere and all care lead by Vera Zaharieva, Chief expert, Higher and Adult Education Sector, Information Department, Human Resources Development Centre.
NEO – Ukraine team will continue keeping informed Ukrainian stakeholders about the opportunities for collaboration and look forward to more cooperation between our countries under Erasmus+!
More information and schedules on TCAs events at https://salto-et.net/events/
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