Our Story

We believe that Europe will grow into an ever-stronger union of hearts and minds. This will be accomplished in part through the professional training of committed Europeans to guide our European society with political virtue and Christian principles. A long Jesuit tradition seeks the formation of leaders to change the world. 

Fr. John Dardis SJ, the former president of the Jesuit Conference of European Provincials (JCEP), together with Cardinal Reinhard Marx, former president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the EU (COMECE), took the initiative to launch a Programme that would contribute to the building of Europe.

The ELP project enhances leadership values and skills through a comprehensive formation experience that is offered to current and emerging leaders. It combines the elements of political training, insight into leadership experience through testimonies of current and former leaders, community building, walking with the poor and in all that, finding the way to God. The Programme’s final aim is no less than to help reform the spiritual, social and political life in Europe, reorienting it towards an ever-greater quest for the common good.

In 2017, the Jesuit Provincials of Europe and the Near East entrusted their vision to Fr. Peter Rožič SJ, the new director of the Jesuit European Social Centre (JESC). The ELP is under the wing of the of JESC and is managed by Botond Feledy, Secretary for Leadership at JESC.