On the 16th of November Foundation for European progressive Studies organized an event on a topic of Democracy, freedom and liberty in central and Eastern Europe. The event was held in Le Meridien Hotel and visited by many representative people. The interpretation was available in both English and Hungarian languages that made it international.
FEPS is the first progressive political foundation established at the European level where the co-founder is the European Parliament. It aims to establish an intellectual crossroad between social democracy and the European project. The mission of the foundation is to re-think the core of social democracy to shape a better future for all, re-store trust in politics and to promote a true European space for debates, re-build progressive political economy to foster a new model of development and to re-invent international relations and the role of the EU in the world.
The event started at 9:00 o’clock with welcoming by Vilmos Szabo, who is a chair of Tancsics Mihaly Foundation and Imre Szekeres, who is a chair of Jozsef Attila Foundation. The introduction was made by Zita Gurman, who is a president of PES Women and after Andras Inotai, who is a researcher from Institute for World Economics of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences went through a new socio-economic paradigm. Rene Cuperus, who is also a researcher but from Wiardi Beckman Foundation was talking about enhanced democracy. These people were trying to define democracy in the face of many problems like economical, social and political. After one and a half hour speeches, the event had a 15 min break where everyone had snakes and drinks. When a small break ended, people and lecturers returned back to a topic of the event.
The introduction of the second part of the event was held by a chair Massimo D’alema who is FEPS’ president. After that Vision towards a stronger European democracy was discussed by Hannes Swoboda, who is a chair of S&D Group of European Parliament, Sergei Stanishev, who is a president of PES and Attila Mesterhazy, who is a chair of MSZP in Hungary.
At the end, there was an interesting question that rose:”What a European democracy will look like?” The lecturers agreed that it will be mobile and messy with different languages and different historical experiences. It will be not simple and predictable but we hope on political miracle, the new prosperity and civilized democracy. Many Europeans in the west feared chaos when the dictatorships of the east fell. They were wrong because that should insist hope and confidence.
