The meeting that took place in Warsaw on 25th and 26th of March, 2018, was an introductory meeting that set frames of the “Liberal Dialogue for Europe” project that will be developed in Poland in 2018. The main aim of this project is to facilitate a dialogue with ordinary citizens, through a series of public consultations/workshops, about the main challenges the European Union in currently facing. This will result in a widely informed road which liberals in Poland (and the broader ALDE party) can follow towards determining their strategy for the European elections of 2019.
During this first meeting representatives of liberal thinks tanks and political parties discussed the potential topics that could be crucial for the 2019 campaign. Seven participants took part in the project. Pawł Ciacek, President of Projekt: Polska Foundation and director at Kantar Millward Brown Poland gave a presentation on attitudes of Poles and European towards the EU. The main conclusion thereof was that the campaign should be two folded: showing both rational and emotional arguments in favor of the EU membership.
The presentation was followed by a workshop led by Aldexander Kolks, VVD, where participants shared their views on what the main topics for the upcoming European election should be. It was agreed that security and safety should be the most important among them, followed by European values and climate policy. Participants also discussed how a questionnaire that will be send to Polish people with support of local liberal organization in order to learn what their opinion on the European issue is should look like.
