GAAEC's Young Atlanticists: Marianna Fyrippi, Stavros Stavroulakis and Akis Georgiou

The Young Atlanticist Summit will be held in conjunction with the NATO Summit 2008 in Bucharest. It will bring together 120 students and young professionals from all the NATO and Partnership for Peace (PfP) countries in a simulation NATO Summit simultaneously and at the same place as the formal one, at the at the Palace of Parliament.

As many as 10 of these students and young professionals are ‘Kernels’Alumni!

”Kernels of our future” is one of the educational program for teenagers (aged 15 to 18 years) organised by the GAAEC annually since 2004. It educates and stimulates future leaders. The program aims to equip this next generation with the tools to develop their leadership skills and become the new influential citizens of tomorrow.

The program is proven to be successful as a respectable high number of former participants are selected to take part in this important Summit as delegates of their home countries.

Amongst these delegates are former Kernel Akis (Panayiotis – Vassilis) Georgiou and  Stavros (Steven – Philip) Stavroulakis, who successfully entered the Young Atlanticists group to represent Greece, Attila Homoki and Kristof Kovacs for Hungary, Alina Cirstescu, Alina Mihai and more for Romania, and many more.

In the Summit, participants will be addressed by world leaders such as NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, U.S. President George W. Bush, President of France Nicola Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Apart from this extraordinary opportunity to meet with world leaders, delegates will also get the opportunity to put their leadership skills into practice and to share their own perspectives directly with the Alliance and national leaders on our future direction.

To conclude, the Kernels of our Future program forms a perfect foundation to start from for future leadership talent and take the ambitions and skills of the youth potential to a higher level!

For more information about the GAAEC’s educational programmes or the Young Atlanticists Summit please visit:

http://www.gaaec.org/en/kernels or http://www.youngatlanticist.org/

NATO’s agenda for Bucharest

The three-day Summit will include meetings at NATO’s highest level in different formats such as the North Atlantic Council (NAC), the Euro-Atlantic Partnership Council (EAPC), the NATO-Russia Council (NRC) and the NATO-Ukraine Commission (NUC).

NATO enlargement will be high on the agenda. Allied leaders are expected to consider the membership of aspirant countries that meet the NATO’s performance-based standards and contribute to Euro-Atlantic security, as outlined in the Membership Action Plan (MAP), during the NAC meeting.

At present, three countries - Albania, Croatia and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia¹- are members of the MAP. In addition, both Georgia and Ukraine are currently engaged in an Intensified Dialogue with the Alliance focusing on their membership aspirations and related reforms.

Young Atlanticists from NATO and Partner Countries will meet in Bucharest

Over 120 university students and young professionals from the Alliance and Partner countries will come together to share their experiences and reflect upon current and future security challenges. The young people will meet with Alliance and national leaders to discuss issues related to the NATO Summit agenda. They will also engage with each other in simulation exercises and debates to reach joint conclusions about the future role of the Alliance in the 21st century.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer will open the event with a keynote address and will then engage with the youth audience in an open and frank debate on issues related to the NATO Summit agenda. SACEUR General John Craddock will also participate in discussions on the security of the Euro-Atlantic area. National leaders, including Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai, will enrich the debates by providing national perspectives on security challenges.

Organized by NATO Public Diplomacy Division, the Atlantic Council of the United States and the Euro-Atlantic Council of Romania/CASA NATO, the “Young Atlanticist Summit” will reach out to greater audiences beyond Bucharest through videoconferences, blogs and webcasts.

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