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17-19 May

One Past, Many Futures

Lennart Meri said that, “Europe has one past, but an infinite number of futures.” The recent past has undoubtedly been tumultuous and the immediate future looks set to follow a similar pattern. But nothing is pre-destined. We must do all we can to shape these many futures into a positive common past.

Conference Summary

Summary

Lennart Meri once said: “Politics is a factory producing the future”. The Lennart Meri Conference (LMC) 2019 tried to peep into the future and also, in some context, to shape it. One thing was pretty obvious from the first hour of the conference: the topic of China is here to stay.

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Speakers

Kersti Kaljulaid

President of Estonia (2016-2021)

Ursula von der Leyen

President of the European Commission

Marshall S Billingslea

Senior Fellow at Hudson Institute

Thomas Bagger

Ambassador of Germany in Poland

Oliver Bullough

Journalist and author, UK

Camille Grand

Distinguished Policy Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations

Constanze Stelzenmüller

Director of the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution

Ekaterina Schulmann

Associate Professor of the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Russia
Conference Agenda

Agenda and recordings

To view video recordings of the discussions click on public panels not restricted by the Chatham House Rule.

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Said at LMC 2019

Articles

Analyses, commentaries and interviews that decode foreign, security and defence policy trends and published in the Lennart Meri Conference special edition of ICDS Diplomaatia magazine.

Nordic-Baltic Security without the United States?

When the Nordic and Baltic states joined NATO, whether in 1949, 2004, 2023, or 2024, the decision was primarily grounded in a desire to have the United States as an Ally. It was the transatlantic security ties to the global superpower and its extended conventional…

LMC 2025

How to Resist Russia’s Covert War Against the West

In parallel with the continuation of the military intervention in Ukraine, Russia has intensified its non-military aggression in western countries, using the entire spectrum of covert actions: from supporting political proxies and propaganda, to the formation of paramilitary organisations and conducting sabotage actions against critical…

Seizing the Opportunity to Enhance Intelligence-Policy Relations

The unusual geopolitical moment created by Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and, now, by the shift in official US policy and tone present enormous challenges for Europe’s political leaders, national security officials, and intelligence professionals. But the troubling times also offer a once-in-a-generation opportunity to…

LMC 2025