BIOEAST Foresight conference

Under the auspices of the Slovenian EU Council Presidency and the Hungarian Visegrad Group Presidency, the BIOEAST Initiative organized a BIOEAST Foresight Conference, a high-level foresight conference on positioning sustainable and circular bioeconomies in Central and Eastern Europe to achieve climate neutrality by 2050.

The conference took place online on 27 September 2021 and was intended for policy-makers, experts, and stakeholder representatives from BIOEAST countries and other EU Member States as well as EU institutions.

The chair of the expert group for the Foresight exercise, Ladeja G. Košir, together with the expert group members (Mrs. Malgorzata Zimniewska, Mr. Jozsef Popp, George Sakellaris, Rando Varnik) presented the BIOEAST Foresight Report, including the foresight experts’ recommendations, and accommodated the debate about priority issues, policy support, and possible pathways. 4 scenarios, 4 covered topics, 10 recommendations - fhe full document is available here.

The conference also aimed to bring further the findings of the Foresight Report and in closed sessions held a debate about priorities in seven thematic areas: a) agroecology, b) food systems, c) forestry, d) fresh water, e) biochemical and biomaterials, f) bioenergy, and g) research, education and skills.

Welcome speech was given by Jože Podgoršek, Slovenian Minister of Agriculture, István Nagy, Hungarian Minister of Agriculture, and Mariya Gabriel, European Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth.