What debates will be held at the Warsaw European Conversation

Preview

Europe's Zeitenwende: how has the war has changed the EU. As the EU faces the greatest geopolitical crisis in its history, EurParl elections are set to take place next year. How durable will the changes in the EU’s identity be, with the Union seemingly transforming from a peace project into a community focused on defending its interests? Will shifting the EU's centre of gravity to east change European priorities and generate new initiatives? How can the EU prepare itself (institutionally, politically and economically) for enlargement to Ukraine and other countries? These are the questions that Piotr Buras, head of the Warsaw office of the ECFR, will ask Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Germany Thomas Bagger, Swedish Secretary of State for EU Affairs Christian Danielsson, Managing Director of Eurasia Group Mujtaba Rahman, and Deputy Director of Estonia's International Centre for Defence and Security Kristi Raik.

What do the Polish elections mean for Europe? The results of the vote this autumn will determine Poland's political future for the next four years, but could also influence the EU. The impact will vary depending on the outcome and the processes within the EU that will be discussed by Piotr Buras' guests in the opening panel. Are Brussels and the leading European capitals preparing for a third PiS term? If the opposition wins, will Donald Tusk's government reset relations with the EU? Finally, will Poland lose its importance and move away from the EU's decision-making core if it fails to form a government this autumn and early elections need to be scheduled for 2024? Andrzej Bobiński, Polityka Insight's managing director, will discuss these questions with the head of Die Zeit's foreign policy desk, Jörg Lau, the head of the Brussels office of the Centre for European Reform, Camino Mortera-Martinez, and Tomasz Sawczuk of Kultura Liberalna.

The long war in Europe: defence strategy for a continent in need. The war in Ukraine marks the first time the EU has become politically and financially involved in a large-scale armed conflict in a neighbouring country. As a result, the questions of how to shape European defence against the threat from Russia (including in the context of the risk of escalation in Asia) have become urgent. So has the need to shape cooperation between the EU and NATO. What should Europe's strategy and vision for the new security order be — one that will have to be created after the war? The panel moderated by Marek Świerczyński, head of PI's security and international affairs desk, will feature Nathalie Tocci, director of Italy's Instituto Affari Internazionali and a former advisor to Federica Mogherini and Josep Borrell, Pierre Haroche, a French lecturer associated with Queen Mary University in London and Dominik Jankowski, a Polish diplomat and current policy advisor in the office of the NATO Secretary-General.

Between China and the US: Europe's search for an industrial strategy. The pandemic and the war have changed global economic ties and forced the EU to revisit its industrial policy priorities. This raises questions about how to ensure access to low-cost, high-quality goods for European companies, and which industries can be safely phased out and which should be preserved even at the cost of slowing down Europe's green transition. These are the questions that Vendeline von Bredow, The Economist's Germany correspondent, will ask German philosopher and economist Philipp Jäger from Berlin's Jacques Delors Centre, who previously worked as an economic and political analyst at EurCom, Julia Patorska, head of the economic analysis team at Deloitte, political economist Shahin Vallée from German research institute DGAP, who previously served as an advisor to Emmanuel Macron and George Soros, and Adam Czerniak, chief economist and director for research at PI and lecturer at the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH).

Energy transition and security: the road to European resilience. The pandemic, the energy crisis, and the war in Ukraine have not slowed down the EU's transition; rather, they have accelerated it. They have shown that the EU can quickly become independent of oil and gas from Russia, but also that the road to energy independence is still long and risky. At this crucial moment, it is necessary to talk about the state of Europe's climate policy, the new energy balance of power on the continent, and the limits of interventionism in energy markets. The discussions on these topics will be held with the participation of the President of Veolia Energy Contracting Poland Dalida Gepfert, Senior Researcher at Eurasia Group Federico Santi, Senior Fellow at ECFR Szymon Kardaś, and Krzysztof Bolesta from the Directorate General for Energy at EurCom. The debate will be moderated by Robert Tomaszewski, head of PI's energy desk.