Maja Bucar, from @FDVLjubljana, is giving the initial address to #PPCLjubljana: "one of the positive things of having a conference virtually is that we can reach more people around Europe"
/3
TEPSA has been hosting our flagship bi-annual Pre-Presidency Conferences (PPC) for decades, always joining up with our Member Institute in the country taking on the upcoming @EUCouncil Presidency, it's become a milestone in the European calendar 💪
/4
TEPSA Secretary-General Jim Cloos welcomes participants to #PPCLjubljana: "the Presidency gives an impression of ownership in the Member States"
/5
"Slovenia is not going to preside over Union, but it will move us ahead by fostering agreement in the @EUCouncil: it is not abouot implementing a brand new agenda, but by implementing the commonly agreed upon agenda of the EU"
- TEPSA Secretary-General Jim Cloos
/6
After a comprehensive introduction into our #PPCLjubljana, Slovenian Foreign Minister @AnzeLog addresses the PPC: "on the eve of our second Presidency, I cannot help but look back to our first Presidency: Europe has changed profoundly since then"
/7
"#COVID19 is likely to stay [...] after initial troubles, the EU has shown unity and solidarity. It is about being at the forefront of vaccine development, and reach the recovery package"
- @AnzeLog, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs (@MZZRS)
/8
"During our Presidency, the European economy will start to pick up after the COVID crisis, and the implementation of the EU recovery plan gets going."
- @AnzeLog, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs (@MZZRS)
/9
"The EU's recovery needs to be green, and digital"
- @AnzeLog, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs (@MZZRS)
/10
"The Slovenian Presidency will take a significant role in previewing COP-26 in Glasgow"
- @AnzeLog, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs (@MZZRS)
/11
"Half of Europeans express willingness to participate in #CoFoE, the response is even higher in Slovenia. The Conference should be about being more effective and efficient"
- @AnzeLog, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs (@MZZRS)
/12
"Two debates will be held: a general one, and a country-specific for five Member States. We want to establish a shared value of rule of law"
- @AnzeLog, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs (@MZZRS)
/13
"If the EU does not continue with enlargement, other global players will assume the leading role in the back yard of Europe"
- @AnzeLog, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs (@MZZRS)
/14
"I will make every effort, also in my capacity as the representative of the @EUCouncil in the @Europarl_EN, to ensure these priorities are met"
- @AnzeLog, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs (@MZZRS)
/15
After @AnzeLog, Slovenian Minister of Foreign Affairs (@MZZRS), gave his address to #PPCLjubljana, we move on to our first plenary: "Slovenian Priorities and TEPSA Recommendations"
/16
"I am really impressed reading the #TEPSARecommendations. They demonstrate a good overview of the challenges ahead for Europe and the Slovenian Presidency"
"The #EU2021SI agenda has four priorities: strengthening resilience, recovery, and EU Strategic Autonomy; establish a European Health Union; improve the EU's cyber-resilience; crisis resilience and external relations"
"It is now the job of the @EU_Commission to evaluate national #COVIDRecovery plans, and implementation must begin as soon as possible. #EU2021SI will contribute to smooth implementation of these programs"
"#COVIDRecovery can be a great demonstration of how the EU can work for its citizens [...] if we have the first recovery programmes in place by early autumn, it will be a great endorsement of the EU's capacity to act"
"The role of the Presidency is to steer the work of the @EUCouncil. We speaking about green and digital transitions, we will have two main legislative packages, and we will invest all our energy to foster consensus"
"The second pillar of our priorities in the #CoFoE: @2021PortugalEU launched the conference, and #EU2021SI wants to ensure the debate remains open, focused on policy questions"
"#Article7 is an open procedure. For every Presidency, this issue is delicate: all Member States should be on board on as many issues as possible. Here we will have to give this issue particular attention, with #RuleofLaw"
"The European Foundation for Constitutional Democracy is something we are trying to develop: we believe the EU should have an institute similar to the Venice Commission, within the EU's framework"
"There will be a constant need to address all aspects of #RuleofLaw across the Member States, and an expert body that can combine knowledge to assess the situation in all Member States, in an impartial way, could be beneficial"
Finally, Natasha Wunsch from @SciencesPo_CEE gives her overview of one of the most significant topics highlighted by #EU2021SI: enlargement, with a particular focus on the #WesternBalkans
1⃣ "Time to Recover", referring to #NextGenerationEU
2⃣ "Time to talk about the Future", referring to #CoFoE
3⃣ "Time to set the Strategic Horizon", referring to #StrategicAutonomy
We also welcome the @EngagEU_Project representatives to propose their own recommendations to #EU2021SI
/36
Louisa Mandt from #EngageEUrCouncil speaks about #ClimateChange: "We don't need to talk about why anymore, but about solutions: reduce emissions, circular economy, biodiversity"
Katharina Johanna Klotz presents recommendations regarding #digitalisation: "what you do now matters a great deal for the world my generation will inherit: support green startups, make digital fair and inclusive, ensure an ethical global digital infrastructure"
/38
Kalina Dukovska addresses #enlargement: "strengthen civil society participation; ensure accession benchmarks are clear; enhance the quality of country reports"
Darragh Power tackles EU health policy on behalf of the #EngagEUrCouncil project: "ensure equitable #COVID19#vaccine distribution; create a European Health Union; improve the working conditions of health workers"
Thanks to our panellists from the Opening Remarks and Plenary Session: Maja Bucar from @FDVLjubljana and TEPSA Secretary-General Jim Cloos, as well as Slovenian Foreign Minister @AnzeLog and @MZZRS State Secretary Gašper Dovžan
/42
Raffaele Mauro Petriccione, Director-General of @EUClimateAction began the discussion: "What we are looking at here is equally fundamental transformation of our entire lives, entire society"
- Raffaele Mauro Petriccione, Director-General of @EUClimateAction
/48
"Climate change is a threat and it does more and more damage very fast. We have created this threat through the way we have set our economy. If we don't change that, we won't stop the threat."
- Raffaele Mauro Petriccione, Director-General of @EUClimateAction
/49
"This is kind of challenge that we have to face as Europeans collectively and challenges are not necessarily bad things, challenges bring the opportunities"
- Raffaele Mauro Petriccione, Director-General of @EUClimateAction
/50
"The energy forms that we are developing will make things better for everybody, so the real question is how do we handle the transition, how do we find the necessary mechanisms"
- Raffaele Mauro Petriccione, Director-General of @EUClimateAction
/51
"We have the consensus, resources, legislation, and regulation. We are enhancing what we have already built, so if we don't start who is going to start?"
- Raffaele Mauro Petriccione, Director-General of @EUClimateAction
/52
"Europe is more fragile than other ecosystems in the world because we are in a very peculiar geographical position, so we need to start this process"
- Raffaele Mauro Petriccione, Director-General of @EUClimateAction
/53
We then turned to @JanezPotocnik22 from @SYSTEMIQ_Ltd to give his intervention: "We need to rethink the way we are managing the risks, as individuals, collectively, locally, globally"
/54
"Our individual and collective responsibility has enormously increased and we need to collaborate more, build resilience societies and be better prepared to share our national sovereignty to protect our collective future"
"What industry needs is clarity, predictability, direction, a clear path which is provided by the public services on the basis of public interests and they're extremely powerful when it comes to innovations, new ideas and activities"
"Europe might need to enter the troubled waters, which is a good reason to save the lives and sometimes later on you might even be rewarded with the medal"
We then moved over to @borghesi_simone from @EUI_EU: "We have to recognize that the window opportunity to reach the Paris agreement target is closing, so we need to accelerate in climate policies if we are to deliver the promise targets"
/59
"We need to involve the stakeholders and our trading partners to make sure that they understand that it is not an unilateral decision and for that we might have to travel in troubled waters"
"Since it always recovers very fast from the #COVIDcrisis, and because it has innovation capacity, Italy's recovery plan is very much on Green and Digital side"
Our final panellist was @Ladeja68 from @CircularChange, who opened: "The European Circular Economy Platform is something unique, because it is a true partnership trying to reach top-down and bottom-up approach"
/62
"Slovenia is the only country with 'love' in its name and I sincerely hope that out of this love we will manage to do something beautiful for the prosperity and the future during this time of the Presidency"
"92% Slovenian citizens willing to contribute to the future of Europe. We have seen that there is this will and power in the hands of people and we are willing and ready to change"
Moderator @_PaulSchmidt from @oegfe opened the discussion: “all panellists are authors in our upcoming TEPSA Book, on which this panel is based”
/65
We turned first to Maja Bucar from @FDVLjubljana: “In Slovenia, solidarity is seen as only a one-way street. We expect others to express solidarity with Slovenia”
/66
“When reporting is done, it is the negative news which gets the attention, and positive examples where Slovenia benefitted from EU solidarity are not covered extensively in the media”
We then turn to @Boettger_IEP from @IEP_Berlin, who takes the German perspective: “the term ‘solidarity’ is ever-present, thanks to the historical solidarity tax”
/69
Despite the presence of the concept of solidarity in Germany, “the motto ‘wir schaffen das’ was divisive in Germany”
“#COVID19 has questioned the ability of the EU institutions to act immediately in buying equipment, for PPE, and more”
We turned then to Alice Cunha from @iprinova for the Portuguese perspective
/72
“During this pandemic, Portugal took measures, granting full citizenship to all asylum seekers and immigrants who request residence, and it took over 500 children from refugee camps in Greece”
”The definition of solidarity depends very much on your perspective, this is why the book is so interesting: it is a political guidebook through Europe”
Our parallel session on #digitalisation and #security covered an extensive number of areas, including #cyberattacks, #AI, and more! Plus, we also had a vibrant discussion with the participants in the chat 🗨️
Here are some highlights!
/3
“We cannot say we live in an offline world, nor in an online world, but a hybrid of both”
“The #DigitalEurope programme will allow us to invest heavily to create economies of scale, and the #ConnectingEurope facility will allow us to create digital infrastructure”
Vladlena Benson from @AstonUniversity joins the panel to discuss privacy and data ownership
“Data sovereignty is currently impossible, but in the context of emerging tech, we are seeing the emergence of a discussion around individual data ownership in a post-COVID world”
/14
“Cybersecurity is often an afterthought to those companies developing new technologies. The pandemic has highlighted the speed with which we’re developing, but more importantly it has brought the need to security to the fore”
Our second parallel session this afternoon was all about Europe's post-#COVID recovery and #NextGenerationEU
/16
Céline Gauer from the @EU_Commission began the session by confirming: the Commission proposed for approval for two first plans that come from #Spain and #Portugal and also for the #Greek and #Danish plan
/17
"Less than a year ago the @EUCouncil agreed on unprecedented large scale recovery program for the EU for all the Member States of the EU and we are talking about EUR 672,5 bn which is something that we have never seen before"
"Almost everybody has been affected by #COVID19. That is why the response from the EU makes every sense and gives every credit to the @EUCouncil, @Europarl_EN and other EU institutions and their joint efforts"
"Who will come on top in the 4th industrial revolution will depend on what kind of strategy it will use in sense that to what extent regions and countries will be able to transition after #COVID19"
"I think now we are in a new paradigm. I see quite big difference in how the debate is running, what kind of instruments we are using, how we are reacting to that"
"I think the connection between the public and the private sector is crucial, public hands should kind of decide in many ways where this money broadly should be spending"
"The priority of next radical right French president regarding the EU would be on the relation with Russia, on the migration issue, rule of law issue unless now on the economic aspects as it is the matter of credibility for them"
Before we launch into the TEPSA Slovenian Pre-Presidency Conference, a landmark on the European calendar, let's have a quick run through all the panels you can enjoy over the next two days
"Firstly the economic crises highlighted the imbalance within the #EMU, the flaws of the 'no bailtout' clause, which meant richer countries could only intervene as a last resort, and that the @ecb was not properly empowered against crises"
Welcome to our (highlights from the) online debate on "Solidarity in Action and the Future of Europe: Views from the Capitals" 💪
/2
Our keynote speaker kicks things off: @collegeofeurope Rector @FedericaMog will give us her views on #Solidarity and the #FutureofEurope before we get to the contributions of our participants from the TEPSA network
/3