On Tuesday, June 10, European parliamentarians met in the Polish Sejm during the second day of the plenary meeting of the 73rd Conference of Parliamentary Committees for Union Affairs (COSAC).

The event, held in the plenary chamber, was opened by the Chairwoman of the Sejm European Union Affairs Committee, MP Agnieszka Pomaska. ‘The importance of the enlargement process is crucial, and we consider it a strategic priority for the EU. Our aim should be to effectively strengthen the integration process and make it even more predictable. Enlargement policy can reaffirm its effectiveness and give the Union another success, contributing to strengthening its position on the international stage and extending Europe’s sphere of peace and economic stability’, noted Chairwoman Pomaska.

During Tuesday’s session, parliamentarians discussed the European Union’s enlargement policy. ‘The interest of the European Union today is to offer its neighbours a safe home. Countries such as Ukraine, Moldova, or our partners in the Western Balkans will be contribute to security and stability in the long term. We believe that this how we should consider them, but in order for them to be these contributors to security and stability in the future, we must first be such contributors now. We need to be the sources of all kinds of support. All these new challenges on the continent changed our approach to the EU enlargement. It used to be said ‘let’s give ourselves time to consolidate within the European Union, let’s wait, we need a break from enlargement’. Today, there’s no such luxury. The way the European Union thinks about itself also changed. It actually stopped being a kind of regulations factory and is increasingly becoming a community of destinies. The EU realised that the break from geopolitics is over. ‘We’re witnessing a kind of easternisation of the European Union – this eastern element became an essential component of Europe’s collective identity’, said Marek Prawda, Under-secretary of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

‘For all these years, and today too, I’ve been concerned by the one and same issue – how we can make this process (of EU enlargement) effective and efficient. I’d like to address a few points in relation to this concern of mine. Firstly, the enlargement of the European Union should remain a priority. Secondly, highlighting the EU’s potential to remove various bottlenecks in negotiations and strengthening pre-accession ties between the EU and candidate states. My first point is simple – firstly, we must keep the issue of European Union enlargement on our leaders’ agenda at all times. These negotiations are very important, and we should increase the speed of these negotiations at all levels. If you, as representatives of national parliaments, keep  these negotiationsalive and in good spirits, I hope that this will actually help to improve them in the future’, argued the former Polish ambassador to the EU and former government plenipotentiary for negotiations on Poland’s membership in the EU, Jan Truszczyński.

The next session was titled ‘Towards strengthening the EU’s collective effort to improve cyber resilience and combat disinformation.’ When opening the session, Chairman of the Senate European Union Affairs Committee, Sen Tomasz Grodzki, pointed out that ‘in the era of dynamic digital development, cyber security is becoming a key element of EU policy’. ‘Digital transformation affects not only the daily lives of citizens, but also the stability of the economy as well as the security and health of democracy. For several years, the EU has been consistently developing a strategy based on three pillars: resilience, prevention and defence. These activities include, among others, the development of a single market for cyber security, capacity building, strengthening international cooperation, and combating disinformation’, the chairman of the Senate committee stressed.

Rafał Rosiński, Under-secretary of State at the Ministry of Digitalisation, also took the floor at the session. ‘Technological growth and changes in the relationship between the superpowers made Europe’s geopolitical situation change. The escalation of international conflicts, development of artificial intelligence and advances in digitalisation are also increasing the scale and likelihood of cyber attacks. This is why Poland made cyber security one of the main priorities of its presidency of the Council of the European Union. Since the beginning of our presidency, we’ve been working intensively to support the development of a holistic and coherent approach to cyber security. We do this effectively. On June 6, we succeeded in developing and adopting a recommendation from the Council of the European Union providing a common framework for responding to large-scale cyber incidents, the so-called Cyber Blueprint’,said the deputy head of the Ministry of Digitalisation.

‘We cooperate with stakeholders, expand the community that fights misinformation and create a space where we can learn from each other. We are investing in building more capacity and increasing capabilities so that our partners can defend themselves against disinformation and manipulation’, said Martyna Bildziukiewicz, deputy head of the Strategic Communication Regional Teams and Coordination of Task Forces at the European External Action Service.

Tuesday’s debates were co-chaired by the chairwoman of the Sejm European Union Affairs Committee, MP Agnieszka Pomaska, and the chairman of the Senate European Union Affairs Committee, Sen Tomasz Grodzki. The meeting also adopted the draft notes of the 73rd COSAC meeting.

The meeting was one of the most important events of the parliamentary dimension of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council.