International Summer School

The annual school was conceived by Tomasz Kamusella, who from 1996-1999 had canvassed for its establishment with the Centre international de formation européenne (CIFE), Nice, the Regional Authority of the Opole Voivodeship (Urząd Wojewódzki Województwa Opolskiego, UW), Opole, and beginning in late 1998, with the Self-Governmental Regional Authority of the Opole Voivodeship (Urząd Marszałkowski Województwa Opolskiego, UM). The success came in 1999, when the first edition of this school, then known as the European International Summer School was organized in the palace in Kamień Śląski. This inaugural school was opened by the then Opole Bishop, Alfons Nossol, the then CIFE Director, Ferdinand Kinsky, the then Opole Regional President, Stanisław Jałowiecki, Robert Pszczel, a NATO Officer of Press and Information, and Tomasz Kamusella, then Advisor on International Affairs to the Regional President (Doradca Marszałka ds. Współpracy z Zagranicą).

The two following editions (2000, 2001) were organized in the palace in Otmuchów, and since then the main leg of this school has taken place in Opole. Until 2006, the event’s other legs took participants to Berlin and Brussels, with visits to European Union institutions and the NATO Headquarters; and the school’s focus was on European integration and security. T. Kamusella supervised the organization of this school between 1999 and 2002, and continued to lecture at the annual event in 2003 and 2007. Through 2002, the school’s languages of instruction had been English and German. Between 2003 and 2006, English was employed in this function. In 2002, the Dom Europejski (European House) relieved the UM of the role of the main organizer of this school. In 2007, German replaced English as the medium of instruction, NATO ceased financing this event, and since then the focus has been on national minorities. In that year, also Strasbourg appeared on the school’s itinerary, especially for the sake of the study of the situation of the German minority in France. The changes were necessitated by the fact that Poland, alongside nine other states, had already joined the European Union in 2004, so the school’s main topic, EU enlargement, had become history.

At present the school is co-organized and co-financed by the European House, CIFE, the UM, and the Wyższa Szkoła Zarządzania i Administracji (Higher School of Administration and Management), Opole. In 2009, at the 11th edition of the school, lectures too place in Opole, as well as in Berlin and Strasbourg, complete with study visits to the German central institutions, European Union institutions, and the Council of Europe. Apartf from those mentioned above, other notable lecturers who spoke at this school, among others, include, Danuta Berlińska, Rob Boudewijn, Danuta Hübner, Hartmut Marhold, Ryszard Piasecki, Robin Schneider, Dorota Simonides, Hanna Suchocka, or Edmund Wittbrodt.