The Economic Policy Institute, Sofia (EPI) successfully conducted the 2010 June visit of US fellows within the German Marshall Fund’s Marshall Memorial Fellowship program. Within the period June 18 and 23, 2010 EPI hosted a group of 6 American fellows including Mr. Victor Reinoso (Deputy Mayor of Washington, DC), Mr. Steven Person (manager, Corporate Citizenship & Corporate Affairs at IBM), Mr. Jason Gelender (Senior Staff Attorney at the Colorado Office of Legislative Legal Services), Ms. Jennifer Ruggles (Regional Economic Development Director of the State of Ohio), Mr. Amol Naik (Associate at McKenna Long & Aldridge) and Ms. Arletra Chantelle Roberson (Attorney at Miller and Martin).The Marshall Memorial Fellowship program (MMF) was founded in 1982 by the GMF in order to introduce the new generations of European leaders to America's institutions, politics, and society. The program fosters the transatlantic dialogue by including at first young political leaders and representatives of the media from Germany, Denmark, France and the Netherlands. In the interim, the MMF enlarged its scope and nowadays target countries are Bulgaria and ten other European countries.

In 1999, the GMF launched an American component of the program which aims at encouraging the transatlantic relations by exposing future U.S. leaders to a changing and expanding Europe. Traditionally, the MMF program in Europe starts every year in Brussels and afterwards within a month the U.S. fellows visit several countries all over Europe.

The program of the visit aimed at presenting a wide range of up-to-date topics concerning country’s current political, economic and social landscape by conducting formal and informal meetings with prominent policymakers, members of the business, government, political, NGO and media. Bulgarian transition after the fall of the communism, country’s EU and NATO membership, challneges and opportunities for doing business in Bulgaria, anti-corruption measures, energey depependancy were only a few of the issues tackled within the general agenda. In the frameworks of the individuall appointments, the US fellows were able to deepen their knowledge on topics of their professional interest. Out if the tweleve topics, spheres and contact persons proposed by the fellows EPI managed to counduct eleven individual meetings. The efforts to arrange a such at IBM Bulgaria and/or at IBM Global Delivery Center Bulgaria proved to be unsuccesful due to internal resasons for both IBM branches in Bulgaria, though, obviously expressed by unwilligness for cooperation and lack of proper inner communication.