INVITATION: Regional cooperation and EU decision-making: impact of the Benelux, Nordic Council and V4

It is our pleasure to invite you to a seminar that takes place on Friday, 19th October from 12:30 to 15:00, at Centre for European Policy Studies in 1 Place du Congrès, 1000 Brussels.

Beneath the European Union’s formal structures there exists a layer of (sub-)regional groupings of member states that influence and shape EU-level strategies, policies, decisions and legislation. The Benelux Union, Nordic Council, Baltic cooperation, Visegrad Four, Hansa cooperation and the Three Seas Initiative are just a few of them. Based on shared history, common goals and/or geographical proximity, those groups vary significantly in their membership, level of institutionalisation, scope of activities, funding base and working methods.

Nevertheless, they provide a platform for individual member states to forge common positions not only regarding regional topics, but also concerning the decision making process in the EU. This seminar will compare the formats and approaches to regional cooperation of the Benelux, Nordic Council and V4 and discuss their influence on the EU decision-making process.

The conference organized by the Think Visegrad platform and the Centre for European Policy Studies.

The event will take place on Friday, October 19th:

12:30 – 13:15 Registration and light lunch

13:15 – 14:15 Seminar

14:15 – 15:00 Q&A

Speakers:

• Alain de Muyser, Deputy Secretary General, Benelux
• Petra Vargová, Deputy Permanent Representative, Slovak PermRep. to the EU (TBC)
• Matilda af Hällström, Adviser of the Nordic council in Brussels
• Jakub Groszkowski, The Centre for Eastern Studies (OSW), Poland
• Piret Kuusik, Estonian Foreign Policy Institute, Estonia

Moderation: Zuzana Stuchlíková, EUROPEUM, and Steven Blockmans, CEPS

Please or register at http://bit.ly/EURegCoop or contact us via brussels@europeum.org.

PDF invitation is available on the right side of this page.

Zuzana Stuchlíková
Associate Research Fellow

Expertise: Central Europe, EU Institutions