In his opening remarks, Konstanty Gebert pointed out the new conditions and political environment in the Paris-Berlin-Warsaw triangle after the success of FrançoisHollande in the presidential elections, as well as in the face of the ongoing economic crisis in Europe.

According to Janusz Reiter, Polish relations with France have enough real substance to create future opportunities and chances and excluding Poland in the future from the Eurozone will not have positive effects. Georges Mink also underlined that President FrançoisHollande has a symbolic debt towards Poland for the support he had received. Nevertheless,  no bolder, concrete steps from the new President  will be seen for the next couple of months,  neither at the national  nor the international level.

Speakers agreed that the future of Europe is probably a Union of multi-speed blocks and that it will be probably hard for Poland and other countries to catch up with the ‘core’ of the EU, which may cause at some point an actual need for re-entering the Union for a number of countries.

As a final statement to the debate, Konstanty Gebert pointed out that in the face of the crisis of the EU, bilateral relations will slow this process and that the reconstruction of the relations with France by Poland is for the common good of the EU as well.