Initiating a dialogue

The theme of this year's Economic Forum, the biggest political and economic congress in the CEE region, is "European Challenges: the Question of Europe's Identity." During the four-day meeting there will be over 100 debates divided into 10 thematic blocks, such as business and management, the fuel and power industry, the EU and its neighbors, and macroeconomics.

The main focus will be on the EU's implementation of the Lisbon Strategy, namely how to make the economies of old and new member states more competitive, and how to boost spending on R&D.

"The Lisbon Strategy adopted a couple of years ago by the old 15 members is not being properly implemented, and we can already tell that it reduces the enlarged EU's competitiveness and its chances to compete in the global economy with the US and Asian countries. Maintaining the status quo is simply impossible," Zygmunt Berdychowski, head of the forum's program council, told WBJ.

Another hot issue this year is energy security - the panels will confront the views of different CEE countries, as well as those of governments, private companies and market regulators.

On the eve of the EU's addition of two new countries - Romania and Bulgaria - the forum's participants will also discuss the future of the EU and the direction of further expansion.

"Should we talk about enlarging the EU by countries such as Ukraine, Belarus, Russia or Moldova, or rather the countries of the Mediterranean basin such as Turkey, Israel or Algeria? Before making these decisions, we have to answer these questions. We have to talk about it, we need to initiate dialogue," Berdychowski said.