EU

The Czech Republic wants to borrow tens of billions through the National Recovery Plan for projects such as the gas pipeline from Poland or the strengthening of the oil pipeline from Italy. The money will come from the European Recovery and Resilience Facility, which should make the loan profitable. Not all projects have been given the green light by the European Commission. Funding for the Dukovany hot water pipeline has been put on hold. Our Senior Research Fellow Vít Havelka commented on this topic.

The head of the EUROPEUM Institute's Brussels office wrote a commentary for Aktuálně.cz on the European Political Community meeting in Moldova.

The head of the Brussels office, Žiga Faktor, commented on the possible future of the European Union in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Our Senior Research Fellow Jana Juzová, Associate Research Fellow Zuzana Kasáková and Head of the Brussels Office Žiga Faktor prepared the background material for the roundtable of the National Convention on the EU. The topic is "The European Political Community and its future potential". Three main questions are put to the roundtable: What potential does the European Political Community offer and how can it complement existing platforms and processes? In which areas of cooperation does the platform have the greatest potential and what should it focus on? What format and modus operandi would be most beneficial for the Platform to fulfil its purpose?

President Petr Pavel headed to Brussels, where our country has the potential to increase its influence, and the head of state can only help this. In the last year, our country has proven that it can not only point out problems, but also propose solutions. An example is support for Ukraine, writes the head of the Brussels office Žiga Faktor.

The United Kingdom has finally found common ground with the EU regarding the provisions of the Northern Ireland Protocol. The current British prime minister can take credit for what three prime ministers failed to do before. So does Britain's foreign policy stand on a shoulder of one man's personal connections? The question answered our Katřina Horáková in her blog.

We cordially invite you to an informal debate over a beer. We will talk about Europe as you see it. The debate will take place in person in Klatovy. We pay for the first round!

In her policy paper, Benedetta Milani discusses the trade agreement between the EU and the South American trade bloc Mercosur. Trade between the EU and Mercosur will have to wait some time before it is approved, because the agreement must be backed by the national parliaments of the 27 EU Member States and the 4 Mercosur partner countries (Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, and Uruguay).

As part of the Café Evropa debate cycle, one of the discussions took place on the relationship and approach between the European Union and China. Among those invited were Magdaléna Slezáková, Ondřej Wagner, David Gardáš and Zdeněk Beránek. You can read a summary of the outputs of individual guests in the report written by our intern Eliška Prostřední.

After long negotiations, according to the head of EU diplomacy, Josep Borrell, on Saturday, March 18, the representatives of Serbia and Kosovo agreed on the final form of the agreement, which is supposed to ensure the normalization of relations between the two countries. Serbia does not recognize the independence of its former province, and relations have further escalated over the past year and a half over a dispute over the recognition of identity documents and vehicle registration plates issued by the two entities. The heated atmosphere in the war-torn region has attracted enormous attention from the US and the European Union, and both sides have invested significant efforts towards calming the situation and formulating an agreement to prevent similar situations in the future.

Our senior research fellow Kateřina Davidová commented for E15 on two proposals to boost Europe's green economy.

This week, the European Commission will present two important proposals to the public - the Critical Raw Materials Act and the Net-Zero Industry Act. Both regulations are a response to the US Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 and aim to make the European economy more competitive and prevent a mass exodus of companies and technological innovation to the United States, Kateřina Davidová, our senior researcher, contributed to this topic.