Bojana Zorić from Požega, Croatia, joins our group as our new trainee who will aid our policy officers until February 2018.Bojana Zorić obtained a Master’s degree in Russian language and Pedagogy at the University of Zagreb as well as a Master’s degree in Political Science at the University of Tartu in Estonia. Before coming to Brussels, Bojana worked at SILC, the Swedish liberal party foundation, where she assisted the implementation of projects in Eastern Europe by directly engaging with political parties, civil society activists and election observation organisations. Apart from her work at ALDE CoR, Bojana occasionally works as a freelance Russian language translator and writes academic articles on the topics of the Western Balkan countries’ EU accession and Russia’s role in the region.

“I cannot emphasize enough how privileged I feel to have joined the ALDE family at the European Committee of the Regions. During my time here, I want to familiarize myself with the bottom-up approach and initiatives that the ALDE group applies in order to improve local and regional governance across the EU. I now see and understand how important the connection between local politicians and their constituencies is, which is particularly relevant in light of the discussion about the future of Europe. Being the voice of small cities and regions is a responsible job and I’m glad to have this opportunity to take part in it”.