15th governing board meeting european studies institute Moscow, 26 April 2012 (стр. 1 )

15th GOVERNING BOARD MEETING

EUROPEAN STUDIES INSTITUTE

Moscow, 26 April 2012

Agenda

1.  Report on the results of the meeting of the ESI Governing Board on 27 October 2011 and information on the minutes of the Board meeting.

2.  On financial situation of the ESI: the current state of play and future prospects (as per documents submitted: description of the financial situation and the organizational chart of the ESI).

On the financial position of the ESI and income funds.

Speaker: M. L. Entin

On the prospects of financing of the ESI after 2013.

Speakers: Representative of the EU Delegation to Russia (and the representative of the European External Action Service)

Co-speaker: A. V. Torkunov

On the use of funds from the "sleeping" Articles of the ESI’s estimate.

Speaker: T. V. Shashikhina

3.  On the elections of the Director of the ESI for an appointment period from September 2012 to September 2013, and for a three-year period (informal papers on job profile, and selection procedure).

Speaker: A. V. Torkunov

Co-speaker: Representative of the EU Delegation to Russia

4.  On the ESI Executive Committee (ExeCom): results of the Working group meeting of 12 February 2012 (mandate, composition and chair).

On approval of the mandate of the Executive Committee of the ESI GB.

Speaker: A. V. Hudaykulova

Co-speaker: Gerhard Hafner

On the chairmanship of the Executive Committee of the ESI GB.

Speaker: A. V. Khudaykulova

Co-speaker: Gerhard Hafner

On election of the Executive Committee of the ESI GB.

Speaker: S. E.Prikhodko

5.  Report about the work done by the ESI and plans for the remaining of 2012 (Academic Year , Conferences, Short term courses, Regional Strategy, preparation Academic Year )

On the results of the international audit of the ESI’s activities in the four-year period 20

Speaker: Representative of the EU Delegation to Russia

Co-speaker: T. V. Shashikhina

On the current activities of the ESI

Speaker: M. L. Entin

On educational process and enrollment for 2012/2013 academic year.

Speakers: T. V. Shashikhina, Mariusz Sielski

On the ESI conferences and short-term courses

Speaker: I. A. Istomin

On regional activities of the ESI

Speaker: O. N. Barabanov

The expansion of cooperation with the College of Europe.

Speaker: Mariusz Sielski

6.  On the composition of the ESI Governing Board

Speaker: S. E. Prikhodko

7.  Date and location of the next meeting of the ESI Governing Board (Brussels-Moscow).

8.  Miscellaneous

PARTICIPANTS

The Governing Board members from the Russian Federation side

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO	Aide to the President of the Russian Federation
Mr. Alexander GRUSHKO	Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation
Mr. Anatoly TORKUNOV	Rector of the MGIMO-University, Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Mr. Vladislav BELOV	Head of Centre for German Studies, Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences on behalf of Alexey Gromyko, Deputy Director, Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Mr. Alexander POZDNYAKOV	Counsellor, Department of International Cooperation, Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation
Mr. Mark ENTIN	Director, European Studies Institute
Mrs. Alexandra KHUDAYKULOVA	Vice-Rector of the MGIMO-University, the Russian Foreign Ministry

The Governing Board members from the European Union side

Mr. Eiki BERG	Professor of International relations, Department of Political Science, University of Tartu, Estonia
Mr. Jaap Willem de ZWAAN	Professor, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands
Mr. Tom Jensen RISDAL	Ambassador of Denmark to Russia
Mr. Klaus SEGBERS	Director, Center for Global Policy at the Free University of Berlin
Mr. Daniel TARSCHYS	Professor of Political Science and Public Administration, Stockholm University, Sweden
Mr. Dimitrios TRIANTAPHYLLOU	Director, Center for International and European Studies (CIES), Kadir Has University, Istanbul
Mr. Gerhard HAFNER	Professor of International law, School of Law, Vienna University, Austria

Observers

Mr. Michael WEBB	Deputy Head, European Union Delegation to the Russian Federation
Mr. Etienne CLAEYE	Head of the Operations section, European Union Delegation to the Russian Federation
Mr. Nicola SCARAMUZZO	Project Officer, Educational Programmes, Operations section, European Union Delegation to the Russian Federation
Mr. Jan De MONDT	Director, Development Office, College of Europe, Bruges
Mrs. Evangelina BLANCO GONZALEZ	Project Manager, College of Europe, Bruges

Guests

Mr. Mariusz SIELSKI	Representative of the College of Europe at the European Studies Institute
Mr. Mikhail MARCHAN	Deputy Director, European Studies Institute
Mrs. Tamara SHASHIKHINA	Deputy Director, European Studies Institute
Mrs. Natalia ADAMCHUK	Head, Department of the EU Economics, European Studies Institute
Mr. Oleg BARABANOV	Head, Department of Politics and Policies of the EU and the Council of Europe, European Studies Institute
Mr. Igor ISTOMIN	Assistant, Department of Politics and Policies of the EU and the Council of Europe, European Studies Institute

Absent

Mr. Petros KESTORAS	Ambassador of Cyprus to Russia
Mrs. Elena DANILOVA	Director of the Department for Europe, Ministry of Economic Development of Russia
Mr. Alexey GROMYKO	Deputy Director, Institute of Europe of the Russian Academy of Sciences
Mr. Gennady TOLSTOPYATENKO	Head, Department of the EU Law, European Studies Institute

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

Good morning once again, dear colleagues!

I hope nice Moscow weather will contribute to our efficient and fruitful work. Before starting to discuss our agenda, I would like once again to congratulate Academician Torkunov on his reelection to the job of the Rector of MGIMO-University, I think, on your behalf, too. Professor Torkunov is doing a lot for MGIMO-University and for our European Studies Institute. He is generous with his time, with his expertise, energy and knowledge. And, I hope, we'll all join in expressing our wish that Academician Torkunov should in the next four years work at least as fruitfully and efficiently as up to now.

Mr. Anatoly Torkunov

Thank you.

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

Today we have a jubilee session of our Board. If I am not mistaken, it’s session number 15. So, if you allow me, I will make some introductory remarks. Today, preparing for this 15th session, we can say that we have reason to be proud of our activities. The European Studies Institute is really a highly accomplished organization, with hundreds of graduates working in various departments, agencies and various services. They have received systemised knowledge on the European Union and on the prospects for our further cooperation, we hope. They have learnt how to cooperate in an objective and cordial way with the representatives of the EU institutions. We hope this is our contribution to promoting fruitful cooperation between the Russian Federation and the European Union. We are satisfied with the way our relations are developing with the European Union. The dialogue is acquiring more intensity, and the scope of cooperation is expanding. Of course, more could have been done, and this is our approach to the regular summit of Russia and the European Union planned for June the 4th and the 5th. Our President-elect Mr. Putin is preparing very thoroughly for this event. We do not have any doubts that the European Studies Institute will be in demand, it will be a necessary institution, and I believe it will be even in greater demand. But there are a number of considerations we must be aware of. And they will impact the system which is in place now. As we know, next autumn the contract between the European Commission and MGIMO, providing for the functioning of the ESI is coming to an end. Financing by the EU, we have been informed, in the form that has existed till now and will continue until next autumn, will cease. That is, the basic prerequisite of current cooperation will come to an end. I mean our parity financing. We must rely on this. We have a year to adapt our Institute to working under new conditions. I think this period of time is quite sufficient to bring the current phase to an end and move to a new phase. As for as intend the applicants whom we are going to enroll next September for a two years Master program in 2013 and 2014, will study exclusively or primarily at a purely Russian educational institution. And in adopting any decisions today this is what we must keep in mind: in 2014 it will be a Russian educational institution, which will work like all the other educational institutions of the Russian Federation. And all aspects of its activities will be regulated by the rules of the Russian Federation, the rules which have been established for all educational institutions without exception. And all members of the Governing Board, first of all, from the Russian side, will have to abide by them. We shall focus on setting up new structures which will help the European Studies Institute to be self-sufficient in the future. We hope that the European Studies Institute will have a long and fruitful life. And I’m personally quite confident that it will be able to rely on the support of the Russian authorities. Because, as you remember, initially this project was supported by the now President-elect of the Russian Federation, Mr. Putin. These are my introductory remarks.

If, before we formally adopt the agenda, there are some comments, if you want to take the floor, I will be glad to give you the floor. If there are no comments, let’s move to the first item, adopting the agenda. But before we discuss the agenda, I would like to introduce new participants of our session on the Russian side. First - Alexandra Khudaykulova, who is Vice Rector of MGIMO on Program Development. In MGIMO administration she is responsible for contacts with the European Studies Institute, and we have seen that she is already aware of everything; she has also been working to prepare the mandate for the Executive Committee with other members of the Governing Board from the Russian Federation. And I would also like to introduce to you Mr. Vladislav Belov, who is taking part in the session today as Mr. Gromyko's representative and we have in our documents his power of attorney. Mr. Belov is in charge of the Centre for German Studies at the Institute of Europe, he is head of this centre. And we hope that our colleagues will be fully involved with the work of our Governing Board.

Now to the agenda. The agenda has been drafted in the way we agreed upon at the previous session of the Governing Board. If I remember correctly, there was a proposal from Mr. Hafner to this effect. Another comment: the draft agenda was initially prepared by the Russian side. It was then revised, taking into account the proposals of Mr. De Zwaan and then it was sent to the participants. You are welcome with your comments on the draft agenda.

Mr. Mark ENTIN

I think the draft agenda provides a good basis for our discussion, so, if there are no other proposals; I move that we adopt it.

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

Are there any comments, amendments? If there are none, the agenda is adopted. The first item on the agenda is the report on the results of the meeting of the European Studies Institute Governing Board on October 27th 2011, and information on the minutes of the Board meeting. I wish we would spend as little time as possible on this item. I would like to remind you that the printed copy of the previous session in Russian and in English is available; it was sent to all the participants and placed on the site. This document is of public nature; therefore all those present and other people have information on what and in what way was discussed at that session. I rely on the assumption that... What’s wrong? You can’t hear translation, can you?

Mr. Gerhard HAFNER

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman for the information. I just wanted to raise one point concerning the Protocol/minutes on the last meeting. May I do it now? Thank you. Thank you very much for the distribution. I do not want to take a long time. We are grateful for the message in English and in Russian about the last meeting. But there is no English translation of speeches into Russian and Russian speeches into English. So, what is the status of this report which we have received? There is no indication. Is it now included in our agenda for approval or is it something else that does not have any status? Thank you.

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

I would like Professor Entin to explain this situation.

Mr. Mark ENTIN

Dear colleagues, in accordance with the established practice, the Governing Board adopts only the minutes, the decisions of the previous meeting. As to the verbatim report, it is used just to consult what was said specifically. I would like to apologise: this time we decided to publish in English what was said in Russian and in Russian what was said in English, because every Russian - and English-speaking participant remembers the respective part. So the report gives a full idea of the session which was held. We had to do it because of an equipment fault: technicians recorded only one channel. So, we transcribed and reproduced what was recorded, the reproduction is a 100% authentic, we did not want to invent things. We apologise for the fault and hope that this information was useful just to check that the minutes were true to fact.

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

Are you satisfied with the explanation of Mr. Entin? You are welcome, Mr. de Zwaan.

Mr. Jaap Willem de ZWAAN

I should make a short comment. I think the concise minutes are fine, but I hope that we can return to the practice that we had before: to have the full text in English that will be accessible for all the members of the Governing Board. It is a very strange system when half the text is in English and half - in Russian. It is confusing for participants. For me it is confusing.

Mr. Mark ENTIN

As I understand, the proposal is to return to the previous practice: to have the minutes in both languages.

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

And to help with the translation of the previous session.

The next item of our agenda is the ESI financial situation: the present situation and future prospects. I would suggest that we should not make it complicated. Let's first discuss the current situation, than the prospects, and after that discuss the technical issues if there is a need. The so-called moving the money from one item to another. So, if there are no objections, I will give the floor to Professor Entin.

Mr. Mark ENTIN

Thank you Mr. Chairman. I would like to greet all the participants of this session of the Governing Board, both old-timers and new participants. I think the introduction of our chairman has set the tone of our session and I would like to continue in the same vein. At present we have the following financing situation: from the institutional point of view, financing is carried out on a parity basis by the Russian Federation and the European Union. The Russian Federation allocates annually eventually the equivalent of one million Euros. This money either has come or is coming regularly. The European Union has the responsibility of allocating one million Euros. And in accordance with the same contract, it allocates the money in tranches of eight hundred thousand Euros. And the rest - after the contract comes to an end. In other words, MGIMO advances, to a certain extent, the activities of the ESI. Just a few days ago, that is, half a year later than the money was due needed, the Institute received eight hundred thousand Euros from the European Union, and we are happy. At last we have all the institutional money for us to be able to work. We can say that everything is fine. We have received the money and the work is quite normal but we have lived through a most difficult period, which makes me suggest what we should look for solutions which would make it possible for the ESI to work in a more organized and regular way, and have a very clear understanding about when the money is going to come.

I do not relieve myself of all the responsibility, and there are some objective reasons, because our financial year in the Russian Federation is different from what is provided for in the contract, and contradictions will always arise. Just imagine the situation when the ESI literally comes to the end of its financial resources. At the beginning of 2012, we had a zero in our bank account. And in those conditions MGIMO took the responsibility of financing the ESI. However, the budget of MGIMO did not have any provisions for this, and MGIMO should function in an orderly manner, taking into account the need to fulfill all its obligations. And there was a period when every time we had to ask for money, substantiating the need for doing this or that, because this or that was the decision of the Governing Board, or because we had it in our syllabus. We always had to apply for money from MGIMO University. We had to do everything by exerting much more effort, but at the same time we had to give up some of the planned activities.

For example, we were planning to hold a large-scale annual short-term course for retraining the civil servants on the topics which are close to Mr. De Zwaan's heart: the space of justice and law and order. A lot of foreign participants were expected to arrive. We had to give this plan up; we also had to give up the plan of holding a large-scale international conference on comparing the penal law of Russia, the European Union and individual members of the European Union, as well as international criminal law. I am simply explaining what we had to do. This is the objective picture of how we worked from the middle of 2011 until April 2012. So, we would like the responsible officials from the European Delegation and all the others involved to build our work in a way that would make it possible to avoid such situations in the future, so that MGIMO would know clearly when the funds would be received, so that we could plan our activities on the basis of this. What we actually had to do was for the European Studies Institute to work in a halting, or patchy manner, so to speak, doing everything that had been planned. And the same time some of the recommendations of the Governing Board and of our Foreign Ministry simply had to be postponed until later, and we are now absorbing the money that was planned for certain programs, but we had to plan more of the activities for the end of the year. If we work out a working scheme of how the money would be transferred in a regular way, I think, we won’t have any problems of not absorbing all the money that has been allotted.

And I would like to add that we have several items of spending which institutionally have become impossible. A specific example: a lot of money was allotted to pay the Deputy Director of the Institute from the European Union. The money will not be spent for this purpose, so we should transfer it to the regular functioning of the ESI and to what it is doing on a day-to-day basis, what the Governing Board instructs us to do, what the President’s administration instructs us to do - to hold different events for the civil servants from different government bodies, for our "Partnership for Modernisation" activities. It also means refresher courses for our professors and associate professors and those who are teaching here, the faculty at the ESI in general. It’s more cooperation with our partners from the College of Europe, the lecturers who come. So this is the proposal: together with the high ranking officials from the Delegation we should find a scheme to prevent the situation of the end of 2011 from occurring in the future.

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

Do you understand what problems the European Union is now tackling? What measures the European Union is taking to bail out some of the economies? I think you should realize all these problems and the need to maintain the stability of the European Union, the integrity of the Euro zone, to ensure the survival of some of the countries. So I suggest that we make our requests commensurate with and proportionate to, what is taking place in the European Union. This is my opinion.

Mr. Mark ENTIN

Dear colleagues please don’t take my words as criticism. What I sought to do was to explain the difficult situation which arose at the ESI and the need to give up some of the programs; we were simply compelled to do it. But we'll make up for all of this.

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

Dear colleagues, who would like to take the floor?

Mr. Michael WEBB

Thank you very much, Chairman. I am here representing Fernando Valenzuella who has unfortunately been unable to attend the GB meeting today. As regards the current financing of the ESI under the present contract, first of all, let me assure you that although the Euro zone is going through a certain amount of difficult situations, we are not putting a question about the ESI contract and the allocations that must be effected. So far, the ESI has received under the new contract 1.6 million Euros, that is, around 800,000 Euros, corresponding to the second tranche of financing, was recently passed over to the ESI. The Contract as a whole is for 3 million Euros, valid until the end of next year, 2013. There is absolutely no question of not respecting the terms of the contract. The conditions under which we finance the ESI are clearly set out in the contract and its annexes. We only deliver the money if we receive the request for the transfer of funds in accordance with the procedure, set out in the contract, with all the documents required in support of this request. Once we received the request with the supporting documents in the correct form, then we were able to transfer the last tranche and we'll continue in the same way in the future. Of course, we are open to having close contacts with Prof. Entin and his staff, the members of the ESI administration, to ensure the utmost predictability of all these processes, but, as I say, we must respect the contract. As long as we act in strict accordance with the contract, the situation is predictable and stable. I have a few words to say about the future, but I'll do that a little later in the discussion.

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

Thank you very much for your remark. I think it should be taken into account by our colleagues from the ESI in their day-to-day work. Is there anyone else who wants to take the floor or we would continue. Prof. Entin? Yes, you're welcome, Mr. Hafner.

Mr. Gerhard HAFNER

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very grateful for the documents provided to us for this meeting and I quickly looked at some budgetary issues, and I tried to compare the expenditure from October 2010 to September 2011, with the forecast for the next two years. And I've found some interesting issues, so I have a few questions. The first is about increasing the human resources expenditure by 163%. Why is it so? Why did you put into the forecast figures that are so much higher than experience shows is necessary?

Mr. Sergey PRIKHODKO

Mr. Entin, who will answer Mr. Hafner's question?

Mr. Mark ENTIN

We asked Tamara Shashikhina, the ESI Deputy Director, to attend this meeting and speak on the financial issues. A little later she will speak on amending the budgeted spending. Shall we ask her to give the answer to this question now?

Mrs. Tamara SHASHIKHINA

Dear colleagues, the absorption of the budget of the ESI for corresponds fully to the present contract between the European Commission, representing the European Union, and our Institute. As for overspending or under-absorption on certain items, it is connected to the fact that, as compared to the contract of 2006, we have started doing the budgeting of our resources technically in a different way. There are many changes: different items have different titles from when we first applied for a grant. There was one technical chart of planning our spending when we started doing it. We have a different chart now, there is no under-absorption: we met the budgeted spending targets for to the amount of 81%; we had an international audit and there was a controversial sum of a hundred and forty three thousand Euros. The money was transferred, and after the 21st of September 2010, the money was spent, but it was the money that covered the services during the time of the validity of the contract, and though we closed the contract on the 21st of September, the real transfer of money took place after the 21st of September. And that’s why on those items we slowed down the spending.