Czech Presidency Memorandum 2022

This memorandum is directed to the Czech government, taking over the Presidency of the Council of the EU from July to December 2022, following the Presidencies of France, Slovenia and Portugal.

While there is hope for a manageable post COVID-19 world, the war in the Ukraine is a reprehensible world-changing attack on a European people, a reminder of the importance of the EU as a peace project and the value of solidarity. It also demonstrates how the EU’s reliance on fossil-fuels feeds Putin’s war and has complicated the EU’s political response. The war has also been instrumentalised by some to undermine the European Green Deal (EGD) and EU environmental acquis, with private interests falsely and misleadingly using the war for their own purposes. We welcome the Czech Presidency’s priorities on energy security, the strategic resilience of the European economy and the resilience of democratic institutions, while managing the refugee crisis and post-war reconstruction of Ukraine.