Warsaw & Brussels, 25/ 11 / 2024 – On the occasion of the Polish Pre-Presidency Conference “Securing Europe’s Future”, co-hosted by TEPSA and the Jagiellonian University in cooperation with Visegrad Insight, a set of policy recommendations were presented to representatives from the Polish government, policy-makers, and researchers.

On 1 January 2025, Poland will take over the Rotating Presidency of the Council of the European Union in a critical geopolitical context, marked by a second Trump administration and a possible reset of the transatlantic relationship. Meanwhile, the EU is facing a triple challenge: managing Russia’s threat towards European democracy; testing the new institutional and political architecture of the 2024 – 2029 legislature; and preparing for another crucial election in Europe, as Germany faces a political crisis.

To examine Poland’s heavily loaded agenda for its incoming Presidency, TEPSA Board Members Nicoletta Pirozzi (Istituto Affari Internazionali) and Richard Youngs (Carnegie Europe) coordinated a set of recommendations among leading experts, including:

• “From fragmentation to unity: How Poland’s EU Presidency can transform European Defence”, written by Aleksandra Palkova (Latvian Institute of International Affairs & Riga Stradins University);
• “Letta and Draghi: Recording the DNA of European economic integration”, written by Erik Jones (Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies)
• “The Polish presidency and the enlargement pivot”, written by Wojciech Przybylski and Jan Farfal (Visegrad Insight).

Beata Jaczewska, Director of the Department of Economic Cooperation at the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, while speaking on the subject during the Polish Pre-Presidency Conference, said “The challenges we face are known: there will be a new college of Commissioners, we will start in a difficult geopolitical situation, and this is crucial: ‘security, security, security’ will be the word for this Presidency”.

Read the recommendations on our website. A recording of the discussion will be available on our YouTube channel.

Notes to editors

The Pre-Presidency Conference is a leading initiative of the Trans-European Policy Studies Association (TEPSA), ever since its first one in 1975. The Polish Pre-Presidency Conference was co-hosted with the Jagiellonian University in collaboration with Visegrad Insight and took place in Warsaw. More information about the Conference can be found here.

For press enquiries and interview requests with our experts please email Barbara Vanotti, TEPSA’s Communications Officer.

A Polish version of the Press Release is available here.