FORUM 2000 BULLETIN

June 2020

#DefendDemocracy

Carl Gershman, President of National Endowment for Democracy, explains the call to #DefendDemocracy, issued by over 500 leaders, important personalities and 70 NGOs. The call is warning that freedoms are under threat from governments, which are using the pandemic to tighten their grip on power. Watch the full interview here.

Mikuláš Minář #Forum2000online Chat

Viktor Orban is an ideologist and his ideology and narrative help him gain public support. But Czech PM Andrej Babiš has no ideology, he is a complete amoeba. Watch the full interview with the Chairman of Million moments for Democracy, Mikuláš Minář here. According to Minář, we need new people in politics.

Niall Ferguson #Forum2000online Chat

Cold War II. has already begun, says Niall Ferguson, historian and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, for our #Forum2000online Chat. He also highlights that the virus is widening the pre-existing divisions of class and race in the US. 

Vladimir Kara-Murza #Forum2000online Chat

Putin is reopening the country and lifting all the quarantine measures in order to hold the so-called „plebiscite“ on July 1 - which would enable him to stay in office until 2036. Vladimir Kara-Murza, leading Russian opposition figure, journalist and long-time colleague of Boris Nemtsov also points out that public trust in Putin has plummeted.

Webinar: Border Closures As a New Normal?

An online webinar, discussing the impact and potential future developments concerning the recent pandemic-induced border closures, was held on June 11. Participants, including Christoph Israng, German Ambassador to the Czech Republic and Gerald Schubert, journalist of Austrian Der Standard, concluded that we may have to accept certain level of travel checks as a permanent measure, but full border closures should not be acceptable anymore. You can watch the recording here.