The new Dialogue Group programme, from June to December 2021, is organised around Europe’s post Covid-19 Recovery programmes and the prospects for the EU economy. There will be eleven video meetings and two physical meetings, in Brussels and in Berlin. Starting at 15.00 and continuing over a working dinner, the Brussels meeting will provide an opportunity to take stock of the EU’s Recovery Programmes with the help of senior officials in the Council, the Commission, the ECB and the ESM and two or three independent experts. The meeting in Berlin, which will take place shortly after the formation of the first, post-Merkel government, will discuss the new administration’s priorities.

Lockdown

Since the last meeting of the Dialogue Group in Madrid in January we have held virtual meetings. These 90 minute sessions with senior officials in the EU institutions and different government departments have been extremely informative and focused and the virtual format has not inhibited group members from asking searching questions and making comments.

Because these video meetings have proved to be successful and popular with members EuroComment has decided to offer to Dialogue Group members 12 virtual meetings each year alongside the resumption of 5 real meetings in EU capitals once travel restrictions and other lockdown measures are removed.

If this combination of virtual meetings, to which several different staff members can attend at the same time, and real meetings, limited to one staff member from each organisation is interesting to your company please contact us through the link on the website. Peter Ludlow’s expert analysis of each meeting of the European Council now published by Leuven University Press as “European Council Studies” is also included in Dialogue Group membership.