The International Centre for Democratic Transition (ICDT) and the Tom Lantos Institute (TLI) successfully held their second common initiative, the Conference on Democracy and Human Rights 2012 (CODE ’12) in Budapest on Thursday, June 28. The event was supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary; other partners have been the Raoul Wallenberg Association and the Holocaust Memorial Center. The conference took place in the Gerbeaud Conference Centre with prestigious guests and speakers.
Among others, the conference was honoured by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Dr. János Martonyi, Mr. Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe, and Amb. Maria Leissner, Secretary General of the Community of Democracies.
The Opening Ceremony started with the speech of Minister Martonyi, who emphasized that the Hungarian decision-makers and authorities are strongly committed to protect the human – and especially the minority – rights in Hungary.
Other dignitaries participating in the official opening included Mr. Frank Belfrage, State Secretary of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Sweden, Mr. Thorbjørn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe (please click here to read his speech), and Mr. Michael Wernstedt, member of the Wallenberg family.
During the opening session a message on behalf of the Lantos family was read out by Ambassador István Gyarmati, President of the Centre for Democracy Public Foundation. The message highlighted the importance of protecting the human rights and the mission of the Tom Lantos Institute.
After the Opening Ceremony the Conference continued with panels running parallelly.
The speakers in the first panel titled „Commemorating Raoul Wallenberg – Historian Panel” were Amb. Jan Lundvik, former Swedish Ambassador to Hungary, Prof. Dr. Szabolcs Szita, Executive Director of the Holocaust Memorial Center and Prof. Dr. Boris Sokolov, Historian and Russian Literature Researcher from the Russian Pen-Centre. The Historian Panel was chaired by Dr. Attila Pók, Deputy Director of the Institute for Historical Sciences at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The contributions of the panelists were focusing on summarizing Wallenberg’s most important achievements. Great emphasis was put on Raoul Wallenberg’s Hungarian activities and on his captivity in the Soviet Union.
Simultaneously, the panel titled „The Future Role of Europe in Democracy Promotion” was held in another conference hall and was chaired by Ms. Lilla Makkay, Head of the Department of International Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid at the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The distinguished panelists were Amb. Maria Leissner, Secretary General of the Community of Democracies, Mr. Alexander Ritzmann, Senior Policy Advisor at the European Foundation for Democracy, and Ambassador István Gyarmati. The contributions were focusing on the current role of democracy not just in Europe and warned the audience for the future role of extremist political parties.
The afternoon panel titled „Dimensions of Diversity – Beyond the Limits of Multiculturalism” was chaired by Ms. Rita Izsák, President and CEO of the Tom Lantos Institute. The panel itself was devoted to reveal the various dimensions of diversity in Europe and aimed at providing a progressive approach in terms of diversity management and benefiting from diversity. We have invited representatives of the academic and corporate life along with experts from international organizations and agencies in order to highlight the different approaches. The panel included four speakers, Dr. Tove Malloy, Director of the European Centre for Minority Issues, Ms. Dóra Ligárt, Regional HR Director of Cisco Hungary, Mr. Henri Nickels, Programme Manager at the EU Fundamental Rights Agency, and Ms. Stephanie Marsal, Senior Advisor to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities.
Simultaneously, the panel titled „Human Rights in the Neighbourhood of the European Union” was chaired by Ambassador László Várkonyi, President and CEO of ICDT. Lectures were given by very distinguished speakers as Mr. Zsolt Németh, Minister of State at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Hungary, Amb. Paul Koller, Special Envoy for Human Rights Issues at the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Mr. Borys Tarasyuk, former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine, and Mr. Douglas Wake, First Deputy Director at the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR). The presentations addressed the issues of international and EU-projects related to human rights promoting and implemented by mostly non-governmental organizations. The panelist emphasized the role of civil society in promoting the human and minority right issues.
The last panel titled „Prejudices and Conflict Prevention” was organized by the Raoul Wallenberg Association and was chaired by Prof. Dr. Katalin Talyigás, Managing Director of the Social Innovation Foundation for the Eastern European Area. The panel included speakers like Prof. Jon Van Til, Professor Emeritus of Urban Studies and Community Planning at Rutgers University, Dr. Ágnes Kövér, Deputy Head of Department of Social Work at ELTE, Mr. János Takács, Regional Chief Administrative Officer at Electrolux, and Mr. Rainer Huhle, Member of the UN Committee on Enforces Disappearances.
The panel titled „The Next 20 years – The World how we envisage” was held simultaneously, where former Hungarian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Ferenc Somogyi introduced the speakers. Mr. Mihai Răzvan Ungureanu, former Prime Minister of Romania talked about the importance of the neighbourhood-policy and the alliance-policies. Prof. John Shattuck, President and Rector of the Central European University emphasized the role of education. Mr. Peter Matjašič, President of the European Youth Forum was speaking about the youth-perspective. As he said, it is very difficult to foretell what would happen in the next 20 years, as we usually do not know what is happening actually in some very specific areas like technology, IT, or communication. Mr. Matjašič declared that the European youth have to play a model role in the next two decades. Mr. Szabolcs Takács, Designated Deputy State Secretary for Global Affairs at the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs talked about the role of „Global Opening”, the pronounced presence of some countries (like Brazil, India, China, Russia) in global politics and economy, and the importance of the so-called green-policy.
As a conclusion of the Conference, the panelists and the audience got together once again to listen to the summary of the President of Centre for Democracy Public Foundation. In his closing remarks Ambassador Gyarmati thanked the speakers, the organizers, and the participants, and invited all participants to the next annual conference of ICDT and TLI to be organized in 2013.
Media coverage of the event:
168óra Online: A Nyugat és a szovjetek kémcsatája Budapesten (in Hungarian)
Amerikai hírújság: Hungary protects minoritires, Martonyi telles Wallenberg Conference (in English)
ATV: Wallenberg-konferencia: a válság miatt is erősödik az idegengyűlölet (in Hungarian)
Hír24: Martonyi: megvédjük a kisebbségeket (in Hungarian)
Híradó.hu: Martonyi: A magyar döntéshozók megvédik a kisebbségeket (in Hungarian)
Kormányportál: Martonyi János: a magyar döntéshozók megvédik a kisebbségeket (in Hungarian)
Ma.hu: Martonyi: a magyar döntéshozók megvédik a kisebbségeket (in Hungarian)
Magyar Nemzet Online: Martonyi: Megvédjük a kisebbségeket (in Hungarian)
Magyarországon: Wallenberg-konferencia - Martonyi: a magyar döntéshozók megvédik a kisebbségeket (in Hungarian)
Népszabadság Online: Martonyi: a döntéshozók készek megvédeni a kisebbségeket (in Hungarian)
Perspectives: Experts were discussing multiculturalism in Budapest (in English)
Politics.hu: Hungary protects minorities, Martonyi tells Wallenberg Conference (in English)
Propeller: Wallenberg-konferencia: a válság miatt is erősödik az idegengyűlölet (in Hungarian)
