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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

Ursula von der Leyen

Minister of Defence, Germany

Marshall Billingslea

Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute
Thomas Bagger

Thomas Bagger

Diplomatic Adviser to the President of the Federal Republic of Germany

Oliver Bullough

Journalist and author, UK

Camille Grand

NATO Assistant Secretary General for Defence Investment

Constanze Stelzenmüller

Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations and Senior Fellow, 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.

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We were deeply saddened to hear the news of the passing of Uffe Ellemann-Jensen. He was a great friend to Estonia, a dear long-time friend of President Lennart Meri, and a frequent and valued participant at ICDS’s annual Lennart Meri Conference. He will be very…

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Lennart Meri Lecture 2022 by Ambassador Daniel Fried

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LMC 2022

Tempus Fugit – Time Flees

September 2021, the date of the last Lennart Meri Conference, seems eons ago. Russia’s savage war in Ukraine is already in its third month, its fallout landing from Central Asia to North Africa, from the Indo Pacific and the Middle East to Finland and Sweden.

LMC 2022