Skip navigation

Lennart Meri Conference 2023

12-14 May 2023 · Radisson Collection Hotel, Tallinn

Three days packed with insights by distinguished policymakers, analysts, politicians, military officials and academia from around the globe in Tallinn, Estonia. Key foreign and security policy issues discussed mostly from the perspective of the northern and eastern parts of Europe.

Conference Agenda

Agenda

You can watch again the public panel discussions that were not restricted by the Chatham House Rule. Links to the recordings, photo galleries and introductions are available under each discussion.

Read more

Some key messages

Recaps

Articles

Speech by President Alar Karis

Dear friends, I am honoured to welcome you in Estonia for the Lennart Meri conference, and I am pleased to see many familiar, but also new faces. When we gathered in Tallinn last year, there was still shock caused by the brutality of the war…

LMC 2023
Reuters/Scanpix

Accelerated Growth: Developments in Baltic Defence

Russia’s war in Ukraine has prompted Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania to accelerate the building of their armed forces.

LMC 2023
AP Photo/Scanpix

To Speak or Not to Speak with Russia: A Baltic Way

After Russia invaded Ukraine, the diplomatic scene witnessed many collective walkouts at international venues when the representatives from the aggressor country took the floor – a symbolic gesture of protest and disgust with the Russian policy and those who defend it.

Reuters / Moscow City Court press service / Scanpix

How the War Affected the Russian Security Services

The intelligence disaster in the spring of 2022 was so big that Putin couldn’t ignore it. The repressions were anticipated and quick to follow. But then, something changed.

AP Photo/Scanpix

Studying Russia: Getting the Reckoning Right

Russia is becoming harder to study, but understanding it is crucial. To ensure their work is cogent, unbiased, informed, and thus as useful as possible, scholars must engage in debate, question assumptions, and be open to new technologies.

LMC 2023
AP/Kremlin Pool Photo/Scanpix

What Are the Legacies of Sino-Russian Relations?

The Sino-Russian relationship was, for many years, a subject that failed to excite. Very few experts committed time and effort to exploring its ups and downs. Those that did spent their time debating whether the relationship was really a marriage of true minds or a…

LMC 2023

Speakers

Alar Karis

President of Estonia

Kaja Kallas

Prime Minister of Estonia

Krišjānis Kariņš

Prime Minister of Latvia

Ingrida Šimonytė

Prime Minister of Lithuania

Timothy Garton Ash

Professor of European Studies at University of Oxford

Margrethe Vestager

Executive Vice-president of the European Commission and Commissioner

Christopher G Cavoli

Commander of the US European Command and Supreme Allied Commander Europe

Fiona Hill

Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Foundation and Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution

Karel Řehka

Chief of Defence of the Czech Republic

Constanze Stelzenmüller

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

Susan B Glasser

Staff Writer at The New Yorker

Greg Yudin

Professor at The Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences and Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University

Anna Wieslander

Director for Northern Europe at the Atlantic Council and Secretary General of the Swedish Defence Association

Elina Valtonen

Member of the Finnish Parliament and Vice-Chair of the National Coalition Party

Akiko Fukushima

Senior Fellow at the Tokyo Foundation for Policy Research

Thomas Bagger

Ambassador of Germany in Poland

Supporters and Partners

About Lennart Meri Conference

“We can never have too much security,” said President Lennart Meri. To mark his continuing legacy in foreign and security policy thinking, the annual Lennart Meri Conference aims to encourage curiosity and debate, highlight unity and diversity, and foster liberty and democracy.