Prior to the regular TEPSA Pre-Presidency Conferences, TEPSA has a tradition of formulating recommendations to present to the incoming Council presidency. At the Polish Pre-Presidency Conference on 21-22 November 2024, TEPSA presented key recommendations to the incoming Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union. These recommendations are formulated by experts from the TEPSA network, without necessarily representing the views of TEPSA or its Member Institutes.

In addition to the introduction penned by TEPSA Board Members Nicoletta Pirozzi (Istituto Affari Internazionali) and Richard Youngs (Carnegie Europe), the Polish Presidency was presented with three detailed recommendations:

• “From fragmentation to unity: How Poland’s EU presidency can transform European defence”, by Aleksandra Palkova, Head of EU Programme, Latvian Institute of International Affairs (LIIA) & Riga Stradins University;
• “Letta and Draghi: Recording the DNA of European economic integration”, by Erik Jones, Director of the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (EUI) & Non-resident Scholar, Carnegie Europe;
• “The Polish presidency and the enlargement pivot”, by Wojciech Przybylski, Editor-in-Chief, Visegrad Insight and Jan Farfał, Europe Enlargement Fellow, Visegrad Insight

“The outcome of the United States’ (US) elections will put the incoming Polish presidency of the Council of the European Union (EU) in the challenging position of dealing with the first acts of the new Trump administration and a possible reset of the Transatlantic relationship. The Polish presidency will grapple with this changed context while the EU deals with a triple challenge: managing conflict in the continent and the Russian threat against European democracy; testing the new institutional and political architecture of the 2024-2029 legislature; and preparing for another crucial electoral appointment in Europe, as Germany faces a political crisis and early elections.“