On Wednesday, Poland took over the presidency of the Council of the European Union after Hungary. The priorities will be military, energy, economic, food, health, information and civil security. The swearing-in ceremony of the presidency will be held on January 3.
This is the second time that Poland holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union – the previous one was held in the second half of 2011. This time the slogan will be: “Security, Europe”. Poland wants to focus on its seven dimensions: external, internal, informational, economic, energy, food and health.
The official opening ceremony of the Polish Presidency of the Council of the European Union will be held on January 3 with a concert at the Grand Theater – National Opera in Warsaw. Prime Minister Donald Tusk is scheduled to speak about the goals of the Polish presidency. The special guest will be the President of the European Council, Antonio Costa. A representative from Kyiv is also expected.
The Presidency of the Council of the European Union is held in the system of rotation by all member states from January and July of a given year. Representatives of the country holding the post of president, among other things, for: setting the agenda of the meetings of the separate bodies of the Council and conducting negotiations between the member states.
Council of the European Union Shutterstock
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Over the next six months, more than 300 official and ministerial meetings will be held in our country, including 22 informal councils with the participation of EU ministers. The first of them will be the meeting of the ministers of education, which is scheduled for 21-22. The next meeting, which will be held on January 30-31, will be the meeting of the ministers of justice and interior affairs. However, Poland will not host an informal meeting of EU leaders – it will be held on February 3 in Brussels.
The next 200 events are cultural events, the first of which is a ceremonial concert at the Grand Theater-National Opera – which will symbolically open the presidential seat on January 3. On that day, they will come to Warsaw; The head of the Council of Europe Antonio Costa, a Ukrainian delegation is also expected.
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40 thousand guests
According to announcements, more than 40,000 visitors will visit our country from January to June. The corps of the Polish presidency, including all officials involved in its preparation, reaches 3 thousand people. people
The Polish presidency coincides with the beginning of a new five-year institutional period – the composition of the new European Commission was approved by the European Parliament at the end of November, and the first meeting of heads of state under the presidency of Costa took place in mid-December.
As Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka, Deputy Minister of the Prime Minister’s Chancellery, emphasized, the European Union is starting to develop its plans for the next five years. – Our board will be an open presidium. Therefore, it is not about how many cases we will close, but about how many cases we will introduce a new tone to them, he said.
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Seven pillars of security
The president should focus on seven dimensions of security. The first is military security. The purpose of the Polish Presidency in the EU is to strengthen the defense preparedness of the Community countries, including: by increasing military spending and strengthening the defense industry. Poland will push for an in-depth debate on defense funding in the EU. An important issue will also be the support of key defense elements and bilateral infrastructure, such as the Eastern Shield or the Baltic Defense Line.
The Polish president’s priority will also be to strengthen cooperation with NATO and non-EU partners, mainly the US and the UK.
The second pillar of security that Poland will emphasize is the protection of people and borders, including the external borders of the EU. Issues: limiting illegal immigration, strengthening the effectiveness of the return of migrants to their country of origin and ensuring the proper functioning of the Schengen area are discussed. “We will work to strengthen the capacity of the EU and its member states in the field of civil protection, disaster resilience, rescue and humanitarian aid. We will discuss the fight against international networks of organized crime, terrorism and radicalization, including in the context of threats to internal security related to Russia’s aggression against Ukraine.
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Information security
Poland will also focus on information security during its EU presidency. It will seek to coordinate the fight against disinformation, falsification of information and improve the European Union’s ability to prevent and reduce the impact of hostile acts in cyberspace. The focus will be on dealing with crisis situations related to the intervention of third countries in the IT systems of the European Union. The aim will also be to develop modern and secure digital services and combat climate disinformation.
The next priority is economic security. As mentioned, it is necessary to deepen the single market, remove barriers to cross-border activity, especially in the service sector, and improve access to private capital for enterprises that want to develop and invest.
The Polish administration will help reduce the bureaucratic burden, including making the most important European programs more important, moving away from fines and orders, and focusing on the creation of an incentive system. In addition, it discusses the future shape of the solidarity policy.
In the field of energy security, the Polish Directorate will support the activities aimed at completely abandoning the import of Russian energy sources. It will discuss ways to reduce the cost of electricity in the EU and revise the EU energy security framework to increase the security of energy infrastructure in the EU and its neighborhood and ensure a level playing field for the development of each clean energy source.
Food safety and health
The next point is food security. The President of Poland will make an effort to form a unified agrarian policy that supports farmers and rural development. It will also work on the challenges posed by future EU enlargement for the sector.
The last area is health security. Poland wants to emphasize, among other things: the need to improve drug safety in the EU by diversifying drug supply chains and supporting their production in society. It will also focus on ways to improve the mental health of children and adolescents in an era of digital technology and activities that promote health and disease prevention.
The seven pillars of security will be discussed during seven interdisciplinary conferences to be held in Poland in the first half of 2025. Separate ministries will be responsible for their organization. The Ministry of Finance and Regional Policy, for example, will organize the next European Union Cohesion Policy Conference, which will finance investments in regional development, in Krakow at the end of January.
The seven pillars will also be reflected in the topics of the informal meetings of the ministers of the European Union. During them, Poland also wants to raise the issue of EU expansion. It seeks to open the so-called first cluster of chapters in accession talks with Ukraine. The government also wants to agree with member states on what enlargement should look like: should it be similar to 2004, when nine other countries joined the EU in addition to Poland, or perhaps countries that are now candidates for the EU should to join community one by one.
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