On the 1st of January, Poland will take on its second presidency in the history of the Council of the European Union. A detailed calendar and priorities for the Polish presidency have not yet been published, but according to Ignacy Niemczycki, the Deputy Minister of Development and Technology, the focus should be on eliminating barriers to services, deregulation, and decarbonization carried out in such a way as to maintain the competitiveness of European industry.
“The role of the presidency in the Council of the European Union is quite clearly defined – we have to be an honest broker of discussions. We stand before a very interesting opportunity, as the European Commission also begins a new term. We recently saw the Draghi report, the former Italian Prime Minister, which considerably influenced the state of discussions about European competitiveness in a global dimension,” Ignacy Niemczycki, the Undersecretary of State in the Ministry of Development and Technology, tells Newseria Biznes. “In this sense, I believe that the Polish presidency is not a space for taking care of particular Polish interests here and now, but an opportunity to give some character and shape to the discussion that will be taking place over the coming years, to make it compatible with Europe’s development needs. I believe we are at a very interesting point, and I have high expectations of the Polish presidency.”
Minister for EU Affairs, Adam Szłapka, informed that the calendar of events for the Polish presidency in the Council of the EU, together with the logo, will be presented about two weeks before it begins, which falls on 1 January 2025. Priorities are to be presented in the European Parliament at the plenary session on 20-23 January. According to Ignacy Niemczycki, there are at least three economic areas on which the Polish presidency should focus.
The first of these is the issue of deepening the internal market for services, where the economic potential is estimated at an additional 250 to even 450 billion Euros in European GDP. The second area is industrial policy, i.e. the decarbonization process so that it doesn’t lead to deindustrialization, the fall of industry in Europe, but introduces support systems for industry. The third area, which entrepreneurs, especially those running small and medium enterprises, speak about very distinctly, is the streamlining of regulations, the excess of which affects the state of running a business in Europe.
“We are working on proposals that could positively influence the competitiveness of the European economy. One of the ideas we have is to organize an informal meeting of the Council for Competitiveness and the Council for Trade in Warsaw, so that industrial policy and trade policy work together, so we conduct trade policy in an active way, to protect the European market in appropriate situations, to ensure free, and at the same time fair, trade on the world arena,” says Ignacy Niemczycki. “We are strongly pressing for serious discussion about energy-intensive industries, about the decarbonization path, because today this path is not at all clear and industry is faced with huge costs. Of course, there is also the issue of energy prices. Energy prices in Europe are currently higher than in China and the States, this directly affects our competitiveness, so obviously, we have to do something about it.”
Presidency in the Council of the EU is held in a rotational system alternately by all member states for six months each, starting in January and July each year. Representatives of the country holding the presidency in the Council of the EU, both at the ministerial and expert level, are responsible for setting the order of meetings for each Council of the EU body, and for conducting negotiations among the member states.
The Council of Ministers’ resolution, defining the priorities of the presidency, was already adopted in November 2023, during the term of the previous government. It was then decided that the priorities of the presidency would be: tightening cooperation between the Union and the United States, expanding the Union with new member states, its participation in the reconstruction of Ukraine, and ensuring the EU’s energy security. These priorities are to be maintained, but due to the international situation, the emphasis is to be shifted to ensuring Europe’s security in various dimensions, from military to information security. Magdalena Sobkowiak-Czarnecka, Undersecretary of State in the Chancellery of the Prime Minister responsible for preparing the Polish presidency, informed that during the six months, Poland plans to organize 23 sectoral council meetings and almost 220 conferences.
