Inside EPPC Warsaw: Friday’s Five with Vice-chair Age Steenbreker

International events such as the Munich Security Conference and the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum are highly influential forums that impact the political and economic realms. What is the importance of a student-run conference like EPPC in this landscape?

I think that [EPPC] is the future. It’s the people who are going to be at the Munich Security Conference or Berlin Security Conference, or any other foreign policy forum, in 10, 15 years, that can get the experience and the know-how by organising or joining events like EPPC. That is the first thing.

The second thing is that any political elite, any group of people that are influential in society need to meet each other. Especially in Europe–which is very decentralised because every member state has its own capital–it’s important to get people out of the silo: out of the silo of their own capital, out of the silo of their own national political bubble. So the fact that we’re doing it in cooperation with SGH in Warsaw is already one thing that is quite important about [the conference].

How did you arrive at the theme of the conference, Defending Democracy Against Hybrid Threats in the EU? Why is this particularly relevant in 2026?

Good question. Fun question as well because the answer is really simple: it was a democratic vote. The way EPPC is set up is that at the start, basically, there is no structure. A group of students are just given the idea and the money and they can decide their own hierarchy structure, they can decide their own organisation and they have to get to that point. We were elected as chairs, Natasha [Ng] as chair, me as vice-chair, and we basically put everything, all the board positions and the theme of the conference to a public vote. People could write in their hopes, their dreams, their ideas for a theme. People did that, and they voted for ‘Hybrid Threats to European Democracies’ as the winner.

So that is the way we got there, however I do think it is deservedly the winner because hybrid threats right now is the big topic in Europe. Warsaw fits perfectly with that theme. I mean, the [alleged Russian] attack on the train line in Poland from a while ago really exemplifies how dangerous hybrid threats can be. Doing it in Warsaw just makes it perfect: it’s the whole topic at this moment, it’s the perfect place.

Of course, there are logistical and financial considerations, however I don’t think we would have pushed so hard for Warsaw if it wasn’t the perfect fit for the theme as well. There’s also the whole idea that the iron curtain is still kind of there in Europe and that we need to really break that down, to do more cooperation with CEE [Central and Eastern European] countries. So that just makes a lot of sense as well.

What are your goals for EPPC and what do you hope for attendees to take away from their experience?

It’s a two-pronged question, what they can expect and what they can take away. Let’s do ‘expect’ first. What participants can expect is an interesting conference with a lot of speakers that are interesting to listen to from a different perspective than the standard Western European perspective. Conferences are great for the learning aspect, sure, I agree with that like anyone would – however I do firmly believe that any successful project, policy, etc., happens through actual human relations, and contacts, and networks and ‘I know this person so I’m going to approach him because I already know him’, there’s already kind of some rapport.

I think what to expect and what to take away is also to go to Warsaw, to meet the Polish students [and] to meet the students at SGH so that there is some kind of rapport between Hertie students, between SGH students and other students that might show up. So that is also something I would really like for students to take away. The networking, the–not necessarily having fun–but the meeting each other and being in each other’s company is also just a large part of the conference. That builds trust and that’s also political trust in the end.

How did you approach the task of selecting and inviting speakers to the conference? What are you looking for in a speaker?

Basically because it’s a European public policy conference there are two considerations. We want the most important, coolest speakers that are topic based, seniority based. Of course we want the most interesting person in the world to be there. Second, we have to look at the Polish political and security bubble, see what kind of people they have and approach them. That is also what makes it interesting for Hertie students to come, because it’s a completely different vibe from the Berlin and the Western European bubble they’re probably used to.

The approach to it is basically we want people from civil society, some academia, some think tanks, but also [the] government. We want to have diversity among those four fields to make it interesting. A lot of panel discussions, a lot of workshops. A lot of the things that people do at conferences are often people on a stage who already agree with each other, who are already very much from the same perspective in society. I think we’ve been trying to avoid that. And lastly, we do want some actual tangible stuff to take away from the conference as well, so we don’t only want to listen to what they say. There has been a push to also make it more applied with workshops, with actual products. So that is the general direction.

Do you have any take-aways from the launch event ‘Ballots, Bots, Democracy’ held last week and the panel discussion on democratic resilience at elections?

The launch event, I think organisationally, there were a lot of take-aways, just in terms of general practice and streamlining the workflow we’ve been having. One big thing about the launch event is also that it’s practice for us. It’s also something like, okay, ‘What do we need to do differently and better at the actual EPPC conference?’ So that is one thing to take away.

But the discussion was received incredibly well. And for me, I was very glad to see people really thinking that the thematic direction we’re going to is one, interesting, but two, also novel. I really want to avoid the thousandth conversation about the same topic on which everyone already agrees. I was really encouraged by people coming up to me and saying, ‘Yeah, I learned things, there was new information, there were new perspectives’. So that’s also something to take away. There were not only things to improve organisationally, but thematically, and regarding the speakers I think it went incredibly well.

Bonus Question: What would you say to the next class of Hertie students who are considering joining EPPC?

Do it. I think it’s great. It's definitely challenging, it’s definitely time-consuming, but it’s also something you can really pull off and show off. And it’s exciting: you’re taking a group of 15-20 students to another city in Europe to a whole different area of speakers, of people, to organise a conference that looks good, that has an established reputation. The barrier of entry is low: I just showed up to a meeting. If you can make yourself useful you can get in quite quickly, but what you can get out of it regarding contacts, speakers, experience, organisational experience, is actually quite handy and cool, and people definitely appreciate the work experience.

EPPC 2026 is hosting an essay contest. Students are invited to submit 500 words on one of the Conference’s core themes: ‘Democratic Resilience in the Hybrid-Threat Age’, ‘Digital Integrity Frameworks in the EU’, and ‘At the Frontier: Responding to Hybrid Threats’ by 20 March, 23:59 CET. Ten submissions will be awarded €100 towards travel and accommodation for EPPC 2026 in Warsaw and three of the winning submissions will be published on the conference website.