Organizational preparations to the Polish Presidency are in progress at full steam. We began accomplishment of some tasks in 2007 starting from the analysis of experiences of other countries. In 2008, the Government Plenipotentiary for the Polish Presidency in the EU was appointed and in January 2009 the Polish government passed a comprehensive program of preparations to this historical event. Moreover in 2009 the financial resources for organization were provided, logistic preparations as well as trainings for Polish officials and first promo and information activities were undertaken. On July 1, 2011 Poland will assume the Presidency of the EU Council. It is not only a great challenge requiring strategic planning, full political and organizational activity on domestic and European level but also, what the representatives of the current government emphasize, a big opportunity for Poland in shaping the EU. According to them, the Presidency gives a possibility of a bigger and real influence on decisions taken in the EU. To the public opinion, they send messages that we will have an opportunity to present in the EU arena the priorities of Polish policy, emphasize the most important area, submit our own ideas and initiatives. Only few emphasize the fact that the Presidency is mainly the continuation of previous activities of the EU, providing its coherent functioning and guaranteeing the vote in the worldwide important matters.

The European Union resembles only partly a community in the way it works. The internal differences between the member countries, disclosed in their full strength by the financial crisis, dilute the foundations of the European unity. Will the EU survive this bend, as it has in the past, or will it share the fate of other unsuccessful political and economical unions known from history? Considering the latter possibility remains, in any case, no longer just an exercise in political fiction. The fact that the Union is not uniform has been known since it ceased to be a safe, close union of six founding countries. Yet only the extension to the East in 2004, accepting simultaneously ten new countries, gave rise to a heated discussion, whether an Union of 27 countries can work jointly at all, taking into consideration the increasingly visible disproportions between its members. It also quickly turned out that the Lisbon Treaty is just partly an answer to this dilemma. An institutional reform did not protect the Union from new, huge shocks, which the financial crisis brought with it. These phenomena create a challenge for Poland, which will take up its half-year EU presidency in the middle of 2011. They will not always agree with the plans and means concerning the realization of the planned actions.