Young Leaders Study Groups

In international study groups, young leaders gain insights into their respective political, economic, social, and cultural peculiarities - leading to better relations both between Europe and America and between East and West Europe.

To date, fifth study groups, each comprising around 30 to 40 interdisciplinary participants, have come together to examine some of the most pressing political, economic and social problems of our time in a series of conferences over a period of two years in each case. Cooperation partners of the Dräger Foundation were the Aspen Institute Berlin, the ZEIT-Stiftung Gerd und Ebelin Bucerius, Hamburg, and the American Council on Germany (ACG), New York.

The first two study groups were jointly organized with the Aspen Institute. The central focus of the first study group (1994-1996) was the development of structural unemployment in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the USA, and also the future structure and distribution of labor. Of particular interest in this context were the implications of increasing social tensions, not only for the (at the time) young democracies in Eastern Europe, but also for Western societies.

The second study group (1997-1999) looked at the future of Europe and the European Union, in particular at economic integration and monetary union, EU enlargement, common foreign and security policy, and the process of deepening political integration.

The future of Europe was also the focus of the two subsequent study groups in 2003-2005 and 2006-2007, jointly organized with the ZEIT-Stiftung and the ACG. Where does Europe end, and where does the European Union end? Is there such a thing as a European identity? Can the EU cope with these rapid rounds of enlargement, while at the same time deepening integration? How can 27, 28 or even more countries - not least in view of the forthcoming institutional reforms and the future of the constitutional treaty - achieve and maintain a political and economic consensus? Given the fact of global competition, are we still entitled to dream of a 'social Europe"? What is Europe's future role in the world?

These and other questions were on the agenda of the four conferences of the fourth study group, the first of which took place in Berlin in April 2006 ("Looking Inward, Looking Outward - the EU and its Relations with the East and the West"), the second in Washington, D.C., in November 2006 ("The United States, Europe, and the Transatlantic Partnership"), the third in Ankara and Istanbul in April 2007 ("The EU and the Limits of Enlargement"), and the fourth and final conference in Brussels in November 2007 ("The Debate Goes on: Widening versus Deepening - Europe between Enlargements").

The Draeger Foudation's fifth study group on the future of Europe which was again organized in cooperation with the ACG started its work in Berlin in June 2009. It dealt with the topic "Demographic Trends, Migration and Social Cohesion". The second conference part took place in Washington, D.C., in November 2009 and the last part was in Brussels and Paris in June 2010.

Die current study group, launched again in cooperation with the ACG as well as the Warsaw Center for International Relations, consists of Young Leaders from Germany, the USA and Poland and deals with the topic "The Global Economic and Financial Crisis and the Future of the Euro". The opening conference took place in Warsaw in November 2011. The following conferences will be held in Brussels (October 2012) and Washington, D.C., (2013). Learn More.