Between 23 July and 6 August 2004 the Challenges of Enlargement Community College CECC 2004 took place in Trieste, Italy, and in Pliskovica, Slovenia. The event was organised by the Goodwill ACC – Association for Community Colleges, an international non-governmental organisation, in conjunction with local and European partners. The participants were young people from ten European countries: Poland, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Denmark, Estonia, Austria, Slovenia and Spain.

Ms Mirela Pekica, a representative of Slovenia’s Employment Service and EURES adviser, collaborated actively at the event. As part of a lecture on the topic of mobility she introduced the operation of the EURES network in Slovenia: the services the network offers, the characteristics of the transition period for the free movement of workers in the EU, the functions of EURES advisers, the procedure for job-broking among Member States, experience so far in this field, and the EURES portal. In the closing debate Ms Pekica answered questions from participants about the situation on the labour market in Slovenia, unemployment and employment in Slovenia’s coastal and karst region and in the country in general.

The meeting as a whole was an opportunity for participants to familiarise themselves, via workshops and debates, with the issues surrounding the enlargement of the European Union, the dynamics of regionalisation processes, the phenomenon of cross-border mobility and border area identities.

Among the topics introduced at the meeting were student mobility in Slovenia from the point of view of the Bologna reform and the new reform of university education system in Slovenia, which follows the guidelines of the Bologna process and the creation of a single European university area. The discussion also highlighted the problem of different and in some countries lengthy procedures for recognising vocational qualifications and diplomas.