On October 24, EUROPEUM’s Brussels Office under the representation of Think Visegrad Brussels and in cooperation with OSW organized an expert discussion titled “EVs, subsidies and the future of CEE Industry”. This discussion gathered 16 experts from think-tanks, academia, and experts from the European institutions. This discussion was held under the Chatham House rules.

The debate focused on the possible move to qualified majority voting in the EU's Foreign and Security Policy. The participants in the debate discussed the possible negative and positive aspects of the decision. The debate covered topics such as the fear of over-voting as a possible aspect of division within the Union or the ineffectiveness of the current consensus approach.

A number of industries, including textiles, are now facing an increasing emphasis on sustainability. It is characterised mainly by one-off trends, which are linked to the frantic pace of the entire textile industry. The EU's Circular Textiles Strategy can be seen as a hope to address the situation. You can find out more about it in the blog written by our intern Nelly Achverdjanová.

Read the article by Markéta Pekarčíková, who has written a policy paper on possible approaches and proposals that the European Union could follow or at least be inspired by. It provides a theoretical perspective on the future of the European Union as perceived by the previous European Commission under the leadership of Jean-Claude Juncker. The EU27 was to decide its future by 2025.

Nilsu Eledağ has written a blog about Türkiye's role in determining Sweden's NATO membership and concerns about terrorism and anti-Islamist movements. Türkiye took a slight turn in foreign policy and now plays a closer game with NATO allies. There could be two reasons behind why Türkiye chose to shift towards the West. Find out more in Eledağs blog.

Serbia's refusal to recognise Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence in 2008, is at the root of many problems within the region of Western Balkan. It hinders both countries’ EU membership paths, creates destabilisation in the Balkans, as visible in the recent unrest in northern Kosovo, and hinders regional economic cooperation. Writes our intern from our Brussel's office Costanza Celoria.

On Wednesday, June 7, a debate took place as part of the Café Evropa cycle, on the topic: "Turkey after the elections, which direction will it go?". The invitation to the debate was accepted by Lucia Najšlová, political scientist and author of the book Turkey and the EU: The Politics of Belonging, as well as by Deník N journalist Dominika Píhová and Břetislav Tureček, head of the Center for Middle East Studies at the Metropolitan University in Prague. The debate was moderated by Žiga Faktor, the head of the Brussels office of the EUROPEUM Institute for European Policy.

As part of the programme of the World of Books festival, which took place on 11 May at the Prague Exhibition Grounds, there was also a Café Evropa debate on: Artificial Intelligence: opportunity or threat?

Within the programme of the Europe Day festival, which took place on 5 May on Střelecký ostrov, there was also a special Café Evropa debate on the topic Crazy and young science in the Czech Republic - something to be proud of.

Read the full blog by Kristína Kráľovská, in which she writes about what the Czech Republic can learn from Poland's shift in solar energy

As part of the Café Evropa debate series, a debate was held on the topic The future of energy in the Czech Republic - how to further reduce dependence on fossil fuels? Is the Czech Republic succeeding in diversifying its resources and reducing its dependence on fossil fuels? Will the Czech Republic be energy independent from other countries if it moves away from coal? You can read a summary of the outputs of each guest in the report written by our intern Barbora Kociánová.

Overall, the debate focused on the diversification of global trading partners and how to achieve it. Speakers also discussed the threats associated with dependence on only a few strong countries, which can then take the position of rule makers. The whole debate was linked to the possibilities of global trade with countries that are part of the Indo-Pacific region. Writes Eliska Prostřední in her report on the debate "EU-Pacific Talks: Trade relations with the Indo-Pacific".