‘Doing legal business in the Visegrád Group’: Law Society’s seminar

On 5 September a seminar at the Law Society in London on doing legal business in the Visegrad Group states was held. The aim of the seminar was to explore business opportunities in Poland and the other states of the group. If counted together, the Visegrád Group is the fifth largest economy in Europe and the 12th in the world. Its members have witnessed extraordinary progress over the last three decades, cementing sustained GDP growth. Poland as the biggest V4 country has immensely progressed economically since 1989. According to the World Bank, Poland moved from middle-income to high-income status in a record time.
 
A team of leading practitioners from notable Polish (Wozniak Legal), Czech (Taubel Legal), Slovakian (AKF Lawyers) and Hungarian (Szecskay Attorneys at Law) law firms have discussed the following topics: energy, Industry 4.0, IT and digitalisation, and financial services. The seminar featured a keynote speech made by Tom Salusbury from the British Department for International Trade.
 
The hottest topic of the seminar was the Three Seas Initiative, which gathers 12 countries between the Baltic, Adriatic and Black Seas. The accession of those countries to NATO and the EU contributed to the security and stability of the whole region. However, those countries now face new challenges. The main challenge of the Three Seas is to overcome Europe’s divided infrastructure. Infrastructure connections in Europe are focused on the development of the East-West axis. The pipelines that deliver Russian oil and gas to V4 and other CEE countries serve often as tools of political pressure. After joining the EU, the countries have so far focused on building infrastructure leading towards the Western EU countries, neglecting the regional infrastructure going through north to south among the countries. The US has endorsed the initiative and wishes to supply LNG to the countries in order to support their energy independence.
 
After the seminar, a networking reception was held, where Stephen Denyer (the Director of Strategic Relationships of the Law Society) made a speech on the importance of co-operation between UK and Central European lawyers