What issues will mark the European agenda 2024?

The European Union in 2024 faces a year full of challenges and uncertainties, both internally and externally. The Belgian Presidency of the Council, from 1 January to 30 June, has among its priorities the defence of the rule of law, democracy and the unity of the European project. A key moment that coincides with the holding of the European elections between 6 and 9 June, uncertain elections that will start a new political cycle in the European Union, and that will be decisive in terms of its legitimacy and internal support, as well as its role in world politics.

Highlights include the rise of the far right in the European Parliament, the Hungarian Presidency of the EU Council, enhancing the EU’s competitiveness and strategic autonomy, the European Migration and Asylum Pact, and stepping up the green and digital transition, enlargement and possible treaty reform, relations with the Global South, among others. All this, with international geopolitics increasingly unstable and tense, marked by conflicts and inherited wars, as well as electoral scenarios of capital importance, such as the United States, India, or Taiwan. Both interlinked scenarios put the strength of democratic systems in the world in their sights, and humanitarian setback and respect for fundamental rights, including in the EU.

We talked about all this at the first Café Europa of the year, organized jointly with the Centre for European Studies in Barcelona (BACES). We have addressed "What issues will mark the European agenda this 2024?" in a dialogue with:

• Beatriz Navarro, journalist and correspondent of La Vanguardia in Brussels
• Juan Antonio Mayoral, distinguished researcher at the Universidad Carlos III in Madrid, Jean Monnet Prometheus chair of interdisciplinary European studies and former advisor to the Office for the coordination of the Spanish Presidency of the EU.

Related to the theme, it has been used to recommend the book by Òscar Vara "The future of the old world. Geopolitical challenges and opportunities in Europe" (2023), in the framework of the collaboration we do with the bookstore No Llegiu.

You can recover the session through our YouTube channel and also in podcast format to Ivoox.

The Café Europa is a series of online debates organized by the Catalunya Europa Foundation on the last Friday of each month, with an informative character to bring European and international themes to the citizens.