Discussion Highlights:

• Trump’s Return and European Security: How could another Trump presidency impact NATO and EU defense policy?
• Poland’s Role in the EU: What can Poland’s upcoming EU presidency achieve in shaping European priorities?
• The Battle for Democracy in Central Europe: Why are populist and authoritarian movements gaining ground?
• Hungary and Slovakia’s Political Shifts: How illiberal governments challenge the EU’s democratic values.
• Media’s Role in the Fight Against Populism: How the information landscape influences democratic backsliding.
• Poland-Germany Relations: Why tensions persist despite shared interests.
• Ukraine’s EU Accession: The political and economic challenges of integrating Ukraine into the EU.
• Civil Society’s Role in Resisting Authoritarianism: Can grassroots movements turn the tide against democratic erosion?

Leszek Jażdżewski is a Polish journalist, editor, and political analyst specializing in European politics, democracy, and media. He founded Liberté! in 2008 as a platform to promote liberal values, counteract authoritarianism, and encourage open debate. He also created Freedom Games, an influential intellectual forum that brings together policymakers, journalists, and academics to discuss the key challenges facing democratic societies.

Jażdżewski has been recognized as a European Young Leader by Friends of Europe and was appointed a Policy Fellow at the School of Transnational Government at the EUI and a 2019/20 Europe's Futures Fellow of the IWM and ERSTE Foundation. He frequently writes and speaks on democracy, governance, and media influence in the digital age.

Learn more about Liberté! at liberte.pl.

• Poland’s EU Council Presidency Agenda: europa.eu
• Freedom Games Conference: freedomgames.eu

Ivan Vejvoda  is Head of the Europe's Futures program at the Institute for Human Sciences (IWM Vienna) implemented in partnership with ERSTE Foundation. The program is dedicated to the cultivation of knowledge and the generation of ideas addressing pivotal challenges confronting Europe and the European Union: nexus of borders and migration, deterioration in rule of law and democracy and European Union’s enlargement prospects.

The Institute for Human Sciences is an institute of advanced studies in the humanities and social sciences. Founded as a place of encounter in 1982 by a young Polish philosopher, Krzysztof Michalski, and two German colleagues in neutral Austria, its initial mission was to create a meeting place for dissenting thinkers of Eastern Europe and prominent scholars from the West.

Since then it has promoted intellectual exchange across disciplines, between academia and society, and among regions that now embrace the Global South and North. The IWM is an independent and non-partisan institution, and proudly so. All of our fellows, visiting and permanent, pursue their own research in an environment designed to enrich their work and to render it more accessible within and beyond academia.

For further information about the Institute:

https://www.iwm.at/