Debates

Café Europa: "Challenges and opportunities for the Spanish Presidency of the EU Council"



What are the challenges and opportunities of the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union? In this new session of the cycle of debates Café Europa, organized by the Fundació Catalunya Europa and the Asociación Horizonte Europa, we talk about the objectives of the rotating presidency that Spain will assume from July 1 during the last semester of the year.

This EU Council Presidency comes at a strategic moment at European level, just before the spring that will host the European elections on 9 June 2024.

According to the programme of the Spanish Presidency, the priorities will be strategic autonomy, energy policy, ecological transition, the climate crisis, social justice, European unity and Europe’s relations with Latin America. But are they achievable objectives? How can the elections of 23 July in the Spanish Presidency interfere? How does all this look from the European institutions?

We spoke with two speakers:

  • Oriol Escalas, Deputy Director General of the Coordination Office of the Spanish Presidency of the European Union.
  • Jordi Baró, correspondent of Catalunya Ràdio in Brussels.

The session is presented by Dolors Camats, director of the Catalunya Europa Foundation, and moderated by Albert Royo, president of the Horizonte Europa Association.

In addition, in this last course Café Europa, we premiered a new collaboration with Nollegiu bookstore. From now on, we will finish each session of the cycle with a literary recommendation related to the topic we are dealing with and which we will add to our virtual library of European readings.

On this occasion, we recommend "Una pica en Flandes. La huella de España en la Unión Europea" by Javier Elorza and published by Debate (2023).

More info from the book: Here

The cycle of online debates Café Europa is held on the last Friday of each month, with an informative character to bring European and international themes to the citizens.

The next Café Europa will be on Friday 29 September at 9h.

Good summer!