About the EDTI | Participating Institutions | Origins of the EDTI | Organising Principle | Training Methodology

  
» About the EDTI


EDTI is a group of currently seventeen institutions in twelve Member States delivering training in diplomacy, European and international studies to officials of EU institutions and Member States and to other governments and institutions. We have been aware that thus far most such training has been based nationally, and that there is scope for developing a more European approach.

The aim of the group is to offer a coherent programme of courses which may be helpful to governments and institutions preparing staff for service abroad, and in particular in a prospective European External Action Service. 

All EDTI courses are offered by contributors from at least three Member States. They are multinational in design and delivery, and encourage thinking from different perspectives in building a European approach to diplomacy.

EDTI offers two core courses in Brussels (one Foundation Course; one Mid-Career Course). These are intensive five-day programmes covering a wide range of issues and professional skills. Both courses are largely interactive in approach.

Under the EDTI aegis a range of specialist courses are offered at the contributing institutions in Member States. To reinforce the European dimension each course is offered by contributors from at least three Member States.
 
 
 
» Participating Institutions

 
» Origins of the EDTI

The Initiative has its origins in the programmes of diplomatic training developed in the 1990s by EDTI member institutions for the new states and governments of Central and Eastern Europe. These helped to build not only professional knowledge and skills but a sense of community and European vocation amongst the nearly five thousand officials who took part in the training.

The idea of a specifically European programme grew also in the framework of the International Forum on Diplomatic Training, a network of some sixty diplomatic academies and institutes from all over the world, grouped in five regions of which Europe is one. Meeting in that Forum each year to share ideas and best practice, the group came to realise that, despite the growing coherence of European foreign policies and with the growing consciousness abroad of the EU as an international actor, there was notably less coherence in the training of European diplomats. 

The European Commission also were aware that while diplomatic training of high quality was offered in a number of Member States, there was very little ‘European’ in both concept and delivery. The work of the External Service was beginning to include political work as well as trade and development. They were keen as well to promote knowledge of the EU and awareness of the European dimension in the diplomatic services of the Member States operating within the framework of the CFSP.

In the course of the last five years at meetings in Vienna, Washington, Amman and Dubrovnik, and finally in Bruges, Amsterdam and Brussels, the idea has grown. And now the EDTI group has agreed to pool its expertise and official and professional networks to offer European training to the diplomats of Europe.


 
» Organising Principle

The organising principle underpinning the EDTI programme is that each course will be offered by experts, trainers and practitioners from not less than three Member States and from the EU institutions. In this way the programme automatically transcends purely national perspectives, encouraging thinking from a number of points of view.


 
» Training Methodology

Each course is short, intensive and primarily interactive, giving participants opportunities of working with specialist trainers to develop personal professional skills, and with serving and former officials of EU institutions and Member States to develop their knowledge and understanding of foreign policy and of the policy process.