Dear friends of My Country Talks,

Hello everyone and welcome to our monthly updates. It’s been an exciting month as we kicked-off Europe Talks 2024 in Warsaw. While in Poland, we also got some very interesting insights into Poland’s recent election, where the ruling conservative Law and Justice (PiS) party lost his majority in parliament. Read on for details on who else we met in Warsaw, what we talked about and how we will bring voters across Europe into one-on-one debates next Spring. 

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Kick-off Europe Talks 2024 

On November 13th, we had the pleasure of kicking off Europe Talks 2024 at the office of our media partners Gazeta Wyborzca in Warsaw, Poland. Over two days, we gathered with 22 journalists from 19 countries to discuss the upcoming EU elections. Among others, colleagues from Der Standard in Austria, Ouest-France in France, El País in Spain, Dagens Nyheter in Sweden or Politiken in Denmark, joined the debate.  

The main question on the agenda was: how can we engage our readers and help them understand the important election issues before they go to the polls? We also heard thoughtful insights from leading thinkers and politicians about the challenges on the horizon for Poland, Europe's borders, and the whole continent. The conversations ranged from Poland's recent election and what that means for other EU "troublemakers", to solving the myriad challenges of growing migration. 

Poland Talks: Preparing the next national dialogue event  

While in Warsaw, we also had the pleasure to meet our partners from the New Community Foundation to prepare for our next national dialogue event, Poland Talks. The New Community Foundation is a non-partisan organization that has run several facilitated dialogue events across the country. Next year, we will be working together for the first time. During our preparatory meeting in Warsaw, we discussed potential discussion questions for our dialogue format such as “Are you proud to be Polish?” or “Should Poland have closer ties to the European Union?” 

Europe Talks 2024 call for partners 

In the Spring of 2024, Europeans will elect the next EU Parlaiment. With multiple global crises, rising extremism, and a surge of disinformation, it’s more important than ever for Europeans to connect across borders. Europe Talks 2024 will connect thousands of Europeans for cross-border conversations about the issues dividing the continent. One-on-one discussions will take place over eight online dialogue weekends, and four onsite events will bring politicians, journalists, and citizens together for constructive dialogue.  

Join the media partner network! Europe Talks 2024 will bring together the leading news organizations from across Europe to engage their readers and create constructive, multimedia stories. Give your readers the opportunity to meet someone with a different perspective and debate the most pressing pan-European issues. As a partner, you also get exclusive access to thousands of real, human stories from all around Europe. 

For more information, reach out to MCT Project Lead Hanna Israel at hanna.israel@mycountrytalks.org 

What we are reading 

The Israel-Hamas war is ongoing and amidst the ever-growing sorrow and pain, constructive debate about how to find a solution to the conflict seems as far away as never before. That is why we would like to recommend an article from the New York Times about the civil society organization Standing Together, formed both by Palestinian and Israeli activists. They describe a possible path to peace as one that cannot be boiled down to a hashtag: “One in which millions of Israelis and Palestinians would remain on the land they each call home, and one that would require enough popular political will to demand peace.”