Over 150 theme session, 900 lectures and a record number of visiting guests – 11,500 thousand participants including over 700 media representatives – in Katowice the 10th jubilee edition of the European Economic Congress (EEC) ended.
10th edition of the European Economic Congress was unique on many levels: record number of attendants both participants and media, record number of sessions, lecturers from all over the world and simultaneously other events taking place. Such an enormous interest of the community proofs that creating space for dialogue and establishing business relations makes sense. “Behind us are many valuable discussions and many important recommendations for the future shape of Poland and Europe” – said Wojciech Kuśpik summarising the jubilee edition of the event. He is the President of the Group PTWP, the initiator of the Economic Congress in Katowice.
Among the leading topics of the 10th edition of the European Economic Congress were inter alia: political changes in the EU; economy after Brexit; the hierarchy of values in the economy in the era of new generation of employees; the future of towns and metropolis; investments; IV industrial revolution, digitalization; electomobility; artificial intelligence; virtual, mixed and extended reality; Internet of Things (IoT); blockchain; robotics and automatization, as well as opportunities and threats arising from the expansion of new technologies in the world.
In the agenda there were also sessions dedicated to such areas of the economy and public life as: financial, innovations, technologies and human, education, energy and resources, mining and steel industry, management, local governance and regional policies, infrastructure, health market, transport and logistics, building industry and property as well as global economic co-operation.
The guests of the 10th European Economic Congress in Katowice (14-16 May 2018) were inter alia: representatives of the European Commission: Andrus Ansip vice-president for single digital market in the European Commission, prime minister of Estonia in the years 2005-2013; Miguel Arias Cañete – Commissioner of the European Union for climate and energy policies and Cecilia Malmström – Commissioner of the European Union for trade.
Polish government was represented by inter alia: Mateusz Morawiecki – President of the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Poland; Jacek Czaputowicz – Minister of Foreign Affairs; Teresa Czerwińska – Minister of Finance; Jadwiga Emilewicz – Minister for Entrepreneurship and Technology; Jarosław Gowin – vicepresident of the Council of Ministers, Minister of Science and Higher Education; Henryk Kowalczyk – Moinister of the Environment; Jerzy Kwieciński – Minister for Investment and Development; Krzysztof Tchórzewski – Minister for Rnergy and Anna Zalewska – Minister of National Education.
The President Janusz Cieślak represented the European Business Club Poland and took part in the inauguration session and in the following panels: “National Champions – ambitions and perspectives”; “Investments in Central Europe and in Poland”; “Foreign expansion of companies”; “Forum of economic co-operation ASEAN – European Union” and “ Geopolitics, security, economy”.
The 10th edition of the event was inaugurated by the representatives of the regional government: Wojciech Saługa – Regional Governor of the Silesian Voivodship; Jarosław Wieczorek – Province governor of Silesia; Marcin Krupa – President of Katowice; Kazimierz Karolczak – the Chairperson of the Board of the Upper Silesia Metropolis and Wojciech Kuśpik – President of the Group PTWP, initiator of the European Economic Congress.
In the inauguration session “Our New Europe” participated inter alia: George A. Papandreu, prime mnister of Greece 2009-2011; Iveta Radičová, prime minister of Slovakia in 2010-2012; Herman Van Rompuy, retired chairperson of the European Council, Belgian prime minister in 2008-2009 and Alexander Stubb, prime minister of Finland in 2014-2015, minister of finance in 2015-2016, vice-president of the Board of the European Central Bank. Experts exchanged opinions concerning the continent. In the first part of the debate the issue of European solidarity came up towards such issues like migration, trade wars, brexit as well as climate change.
Mateusz Morawiecki – president of the Council of Ministers in the Republic of Poland came to Katowice on the second day of the European Economic Congress. “Poland in 10 years will be a high-tech country, a country which will stun other countries as well as companies in the world with its modernity and its innovativeness. I believe that in this room are future winners of the Polish economy” – he said addressing the participants of the European Start-up Days. He also visited the stands of 100 best start-ups awarded in the competition Start-up Challenge which presented themselves in a specially dedicated Scale-up Alley in Spodek.
