It’s a great pleasure to address you now on the occasion of the already 11th edition of the international conference set up by the European Values Center for Security Policy.
I have to say that it’s great to see that the Center has been standing up for its mission for already 20 years, having been founded in 2005 on the idea to protect liberal democracy and the rule of law. At that time it may have seemed not too topical, because many people thought: what was the risk to liberal democracy and the rule of law in 2005?
And now, when we see the world around us, we can appreciate that the aim of the Center was actually quite visionary, and I’m glad to say that the Center stood up to its mission by bringing a number of experts to Prague, by raising public awareness, by providing analyses that served as the basis for policy recommendations, and by always trying to defend freedom and truth, which honor virtues that are not obvious, as we see nowadays around us.
Not only the traditional enemies of democracies, but there are also challenges to democracies from within our own countries, and we have to stand for the defense of basic democratic principles of openness, fairness, and especially the truth, which has become a target of all those who try to sow a lack of trust in our societies and then abuse it in their own favour.
After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Center was actually one of the first to raise our attention to Russian disinformation campaigns and hybrid activities. The timing of bringing this to our attention was not so popular, and even today there are a number of people who would argue that anything like that is actually happening. And I believe it is the role of all those who take democracy seriously to find a new language that will be convincing enough, but also based on arguments for our own population to regain trust in our own institutions, regain trust in democracy.
Probably without any adjectives, because we heard today that we have to abandon liberal democracy and focus on something that some leaders even in the democratic camp are calling sovereign democracies, focused on our own countries in isolation. I believe there is no such thing as isolation or any country-first approach in the current world. Countries are so interconnected, not only by economic ties but primarily by trade policies and security, and we all understand that security is indivisible and that a problem in any part of the world will very quickly have an effect on all parts of the world.
And that’s why I would like to appreciate also one of the features of the European Values Center, and that is its step toward Asia by setting up their mission in Taiwan, because security in the Indo-Pacific has a true effect on European security and vice versa. That’s why it’s great that our partners in the Indo-Pacific understand how important it is to defend Ukraine’s right to sovereignty and territorial integrity, and for us to understand how the situation in the Indo-Pacific is important for the security and stability of trade in Europe.
And this is clearly the goal and mission for the European Values Center to pursue and for all of us to promote the idea of cooperation, understanding, and goodwill, because without it we will not be able to resolve the challenges of our time.
I would like to thank the Center for all this hard work and to wish all of you a successful and fruitful conference.
Thank you.