The economic landscape in Europe has changed over the last decades. The global financial crisis of 2008 and the subsequent European sovereign debt crisis, revealed serious flaws in the institutional design of the European economic architecture. Within the euro area, country performances have diverged with some countries experiencing still very high unemployment. By contrast, the new Member States from Central and Eastern Europe have maintained growth and are continuing to catch up.

At the same time, their governments, including the Polish one, are considering new models of socio-economic policy where growth and economic development are as important development goals as territorial and social inequalities. In Poland, this new paradigm is being implemented under the name Strategy for Responsible Development - an operationalization of the so called Morawiecki Plan. Based on 6 principles which organize the process and are linked to the role of state, of cooperation or the role of investments and savings and demographic changes, the Strategy aims at securing Poland from 5 development traps: of middle income, imbalance, average product, demographic and institutional weakness.

Increasing territorial and social inequalities seem to constitute a megatrend, which operates at the European and worldwide level. The event will thus start with a keynote, which will give an overview of European and global trends regarding wealth and income inequality.

The keynote will be followed by two panels:

The « Responsible development » panel will tackle the problems like:

• What does it mean – responsible economic policy?
• What are the responses prepared in different EU investment/budgetary tools?
• What are the development trends at regional and local level?

Finally, the panel «Economic development» will discuss the following questions:

• What are the biggest challenges to convergence in and outside the eurozone until 2030?
• How and which investments bring responsible development?
• What should be the pillars of the new EU economic development strategy if the new Commission decides to propose one?

AGENDA

12h00-13h00 Registration and light lunch

13h00-13h10 Welcome

Andrzej Sadoś, Permanent Representative of the Republic of Poland to the European Union

Jerzy Kwieciński, Minister for Investment and Economic Development, Poland

13h10-13h45 Keynote speech by Erik Berglof, Professor in Practice and Director of IGA, LSE

13h45-14h00 Opening of the exhibition “Europe can be MORE…thanks to Cohesion policy” – presentation of the 1st project – Triggo – Polish electric car, CEO Rafał Budweil

14h00-15h00

Panel Discussion: Responsible development

Jerzy Kwieciński, Minister for Investment and Economic Development, Poland

Jorge Braga Macedo, Former Minister of Finance, Professor, Nova School of Business and Economics

Moderator: Dan Michaels, “Wall Street Journal”

15h00-15h30 Coffee Break

15h30-15h45 Exhibition “Europe can be MORE…thanks to Cohesion policy” – presentation of the 2nd project -
BaltSe@nior – age simulator - Adam Majewski, Member of BaltSe@nior Team

15h45-16h45

Panel Discussion: Economic development

Piotr Arak, Director, Polish Economic Institute

Michael A. Landesmann, Vienna Institute for International Economics Studies

Carlos Piñerua, Country Manager for Poland, World Bank

Moderator: Cinzia Alcidi, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Economic Policy Unit, CEPS

16h45-17h00 Exhibition “Europe can be MORE…thanks to Cohesion policy” – presentation of the 3rd project –
Superhand – CEO of Bioengineering.pl – Wojciech Jopek

17h00-17h15 Final Remarks

Cinzia Alcidi, Senior Research Fellow and Head of Economic Policy Unit, CEPS

17h15-18h00 Networking reception