The coming Polish presidency of the EU

Hosted by: Australian Institute of International Affairs in Sydney

The event will start on: Tuesday, 31 May 2011 6:00 PM

And will end on: Tuesday, 31 May 2011 7:30 PM

At The Glover Cottages, Sydney

124 Kent Street , Sydney NSW

02 9247 8504     nsw.branch@aiia.asn.au

Posted by: nsw   

On July 1, Poland takes up the presidency of the European Union. In picking up the baton from France for the second half of this year, Polish president Bronisław Komorowski faces formidable challenges as the 27-nation bloc faces dissent within its ranks, a significant threat to the future of the Eurozone with several of its members needing bail outs, and concern over European foreign and migration policies, as the NATO involvement in conflicts in Afghanistan and Libya continue. There is also the issue of the proposed US anti-ballistic missile system in Poland deemed needed to protect the West from Iran.

Sandwiched between two old enemies, Germany and Russia, Poland has to negotiate skillfully with both, while watching on as Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Dmitri Medvedev draw closer.

Poland, along with former Warsaw Pact neighbours Hungary, the Czech Republic and Slovakia, is so worried about its medium term security that it is leading these countries to form a 'battle group' outside NATO and independent of it. View The Visegrad Group's battle plan. 

As a country of 38 million people, Poland has seen dramatic change since the collapse of the Soviet Union more than two decades ago, when the Warsaw Pact broke up and it became an important member of the EU and of NATO. Poland and Australia enjoy very good relations, not least because there is a hard-working Polish community of 164,000 people in our country, half of whom were born in Poland.

Meet HE Andrzej Jaroszynski, Ambassador of Poland

Mr Jaroszynski has been Polish Ambassador to Australia since late 2008.  Since joining the Polish foreign service in 1990, he has served overseas in Chicago, Washington, as deputy head of mission, and in Oslo, as ambassador to Norway.  Immediately before taking up his current position in Canberra, he was director of the Department of the Americas in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Warsaw.  A graduate from the University of Maria Curie-Sklodowska, he held a number of academic positions at the Catholic University of Lublin, before joining the Polish diplomatic service. He has just returned from Warsaw briefings on the Polish presidency.