The EU10 Regular Economic Report is a flagship product in Poland which enjoys high public interest and a very good coverage. It is usually launched at morning press conference in Warsaw and simultaneously in Sofia, Bucharest and Zagreb, then followed by afternoon seminar for the economists and academia. For some time, though, the RER and the EXT Team engaged in preparing the report itself and designing its communications outreach have been wondering if there is anything we can do better or differently to make the most of this highly valuable report.
This time we decided to experiment with different audience groups and apart from the two launch events, which took place on April 20th, we held a separate event for the representatives of different embassies in Poland. The main goal of this was to engage the embassies, which are an important target group for the World Bank in Poland in our work, in our events and establish a firm communication platform with them.
The seminar for embassies on the 20th edition of the EU10 Regular Economic Report was organized on April 28th in the World Bank Warsaw Office and led by Kaspar Richter, Senior Economist and lead author of the report. Seminar was opened by Thomas Laursen, Country Manager for Poland and the Baltic Countries and gathered around 12 representatives of different embassies including: Italy, Czech Republic, Great Britain and Hungary as well as the representative of the European Commission Office in Warsaw.
The discussion which followed after the EU10 report presentation focused on varieties between the countries in the region and reasons why Poland has handled the crisis remarkably well. As Thomas Laursen mentioned in his opening remarks, Europe is one of the most interesting places in the world right now and we are all witnesses of challenges the European countries face as well as of the different speeds and stages of the post-crisis recovery. As stated in the presentation given by Kaspar Richter the recovery in the EU10 countries will be slow, varied and jobless especially for the young, low skilled men. Therefore the government recovery programs should include special focus on the poor and the vulnerable for which the consequences of the crisis have been most felt.
