07 Dec The Budapest Security Conference: What do we expect in Warsaw?
The Budapest Security Conference: What do we expect in Warsaw?
Tasks and Challenges of the NATO
Programme of the event
Date: Budapest, 25th February 2016
Venue: Gerbeaud Budapest, Vörösmarty tér 7-8, 1051
The last NATO Summit proved that the security architecture of Europe has seldom faced so many challenges as in the last two years. Although cooperation in Europe, including the V4 has developed substantially in the field of security and defense, the environment is changing so rapidly that further fields of cooperation should be established, while others have to be revised. The conference, organised one year after the Wales Summit and half a year before the summit in Poland, would like to support and keep the discussion on a more intensified level. In the Budapest Security Conference, we intend to focus on topics in which the region has special interest or a larger influence, and promote further discussions where there is no united position yet, or cooperation is still insufficient.
8.30 Registration
9.00 Opening Speech
Dániel Bartha, Director, Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy
9.05 Welcome Speech
Frank Spengler, Resident Representative of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Hungary
9.10-10.30 Keynote speeches: European Security Outlook before the NATO Summit
Half a year before the Warsaw Summit the situation needs to be re-evaluated. Europe’s security status changed dramatically in 2015, the Alliance has to face several crises and challenges. New perspectives should be delivered for the Summit in Poland.
Chaired by: István Gyarmati, Ambassador, Member of the Board, Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy
Keynote speech by:
Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade of Hungary
Miroslav Lajčák, Deputy-Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign and European Affairs of the Slovak Republic
Nikola Poposki, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia
Ted Whiteside, Assistant Secretary General for Public Diplomacy, NATO
10.30 Coffee Break
11:00 Keynote speech: The future of the NATO Partnerships with key partners on NATO’s Eastern Frontier
Iurie Leanca, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Moldova
11.15 PANEL I: Migration as a Long-term Challenge
Central and South-Eastern Europe experienced an unprecedented influx of refugees/migrants in 2015. The massive inflow continues in 2016, posing a political, a humanitarian and also a security challenge for Europe. The effective protection of outside borders, the control and the proper registration of immigrants are tasks all European states need to fulfill, but approaches are still different. Can we make a convergence and find a common European security strategy?
Chaired by: Edit Inotai, Senior Fellow, Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy
Speakers: Michael Spindelegger, Director General, International Centre for Migration Policy Development
Zsolt Németh, Chairperson of Foreign Affairs Committee, Hungary
Álvaro Renedo Zalba, Senior Adviser for European Affairs and G20. Office of the Prime Minister of Spain
Gueorg Gueorguiev, Member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, Bulgaria
12.45 Lunch
14.00 PANEL II: NATO-Russia Relationship: the End of a “Beautiful Friendship”
The crisis in Ukraine created a dead-lock in NATO-Russian relations. We have to deal with the shadow of the conflict for years, but there is a clear need for some kind of cooperation. Among other fields, discussion is necessary in questions like nuclear disarmament, Islamic radicalism or the future of Syria.
Chaired by: Martin Michelot, Director of the Global Europe program and Head of Research at the Europeum Institute for European Policy
Speakers: General Rainer Meyer zum Felde, Brigadier General, Defence Advisor at the Permanent Delegation of the Federal Republic of Germany to NATO
Boris Shmelev, Director of Institute for Political Research at Russian Academy of Sciences and Arts Moscow
Janis Berzins, Director of Research of Latvian National Defence Academy, Senior Fellow at The Potomac Foundation, USA
Desmond Bowen, Former Director-General of Operational Policy in the Ministry of Defence, United Kingdom
15.15 Coffee Break
15.30 Keynote Speech: The Warsaw Summit – A Hungarian Perspective
Tamás Vargha, State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence of Hungary
15.45 PANEL III: Collective Defence
Through the ongoing changes in security and military strategies, we already experience that the crises had a long-term impact on the security perceptions in our region. These changes can modify the development of the armed forces, the active involvement of these countries in international missions and they can further enlarge the gap within the NATO. Therefore it is most likely that new fields of in-depth cooperation have to be introduced, while previous programs have to be reviewed.
Chaired by: Wojciech Lorenz, Senior Fellow, Polish Institute of International Affairs
Speakers: Jiří Schneider, Executive Director, Aspen Institute Prague
Péter Siklósi, Deputy State Secretary for Defence Policy and Planning
Marian Majer, Director of The Slovak Security Policy Institute
17.00 Summary and closing remarks
István Gyarmati, Ambassador, Member of the Board, Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy
Speakers
Opening Speech:
Dániel Bartha
Dániel Bartha is the Director of the Centre for Euro-Atlantic Integration and Democracy. He has a background in democracy assistance, foreign and security policy. He founded, participated and led a number of youth NGOs on security policy and European affairs, among others, he was the President of the Hungarian Youth Atlantic Council. From 2006 to 2012 he worked at the International Centre for Democratic Transition (ICDT) in numerous positions, among others as a Programme Manager and Director for Development. From 2011 he was the Vice President for Strategy at the Center for Democracy Public Foundation. In 2012 he joined the Bratislava-based Central European Policy Institute as an Executive Director, where he still holds the position of Senior Fellow. He holds an MA degree in International Relations at the Corvinus University of Budapest and is currently working at his PhD.
Welcome Speech:
Frank Spengler
After military service and studies in economics, Frank Spengler joined first the University of Marburg as academic assistant and later, in 1981, the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS). He was in charge of the KAS country programmes of Tanzania, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Turkey and the Czech Republic and Slovakia. He was Deputy Head of the Department of European and International Cooperation of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung from 2006 to 2012. Finally, as of September 2012, he became the Resident Representative of KAS in Hungary.
Keynote speeches: European Security Outlook Before the NATO Summit
Chair:
István Gyarmati
After earning his MA at the Budapest University for Economics, István Gyarmati worked at the Association of Hungarian Journalists, and the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He served as the Alternate Permanent Representative of Hungary to the IAEA from 1981 to 1986. After serving in various positions in Eastern Europe and the Balkans, he became Deputy Secretary of State for Integration at the Ministry of Defence in 1996, and Undersecretary for Policy in 1998. He held top leadership positions at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, the EastWest Institute, and the OSCE/ODIHR Election Monitoring Mission in Moldova. He has been President and CEO of the ICDT since 2005 and became President of the Centre for Democracy Public Foundation in 2011. Since 2013 István Gyarmati serves as the Chairman of the Advisory Board of the UN Secretary General on Disarmament Matters, is member of the IISS Council, and President of ICDT. He earned his PhD at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and habilitated at the Zrinyi Miklós National Defence University.
Keynote speakers:
Péter Szijjártó
Péter Szijjártó graduated from the Corvinus University of Budapest, majoring in International Relations. He began his political career in 1998, as the youngest member of the Municipal Assembly of Győr. Péter Szijjártó has been an MP of the National Assembly of Hungary since 2002. He served as personal spokesman of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán from 2010 to 2012. From 2012 he was State Secretary of Foreign Affairs and Trade in the Prime Minister’s Office. He was appointed Chairman of eight economic committees to boost the Hungarian government’s Eastern Opening and to support the Western Balkan’s EU integration. Prime Minister Viktor Orbán named Péter Szijjártó as Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade in September 2014.
Miroslav Lajcák
Miroslav Lajcák graduated in Law from the Comenius University in Bratislava. He holds a PhD in international relations from the State Institute of International Relations in Moscow and is also a graduate of the George C. Marshall European Center for Security Studies. He joined the Czechoslovak Foreign Ministry in 1988. Between 1991 and 1993, Mr Lajcák was posted to the Czechoslovak and subsequently to the Slovak Embassy in Moscow. He was Slovakia’s Ambassador to Japan (1994-1998) and to the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (later Serbia and Montenegro), Albania and the Republic of Macedonia (2001- 2005). In 2007 MIroslav Lajčák was appointed the EU’s High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. He served as Foreign Minister of Robert Fico’s first government until 2010, when he was appointed Managing Director for Russia, Eastern Neighbourhood and the Western Balkans of the EU’s External Action Service. In April 2012 he was named, as an independent, Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister of Slovakia.
Nikola Poposki
Nikola Poposki received a BA in Economics from Skopje University and from Nice University in 2002 and a Master in Languages and International Trade in the EU from Skopje University and Rennes University in 2004. He later received an MA from the College of Europe. He is the incumbent Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Macedonia. Prior to his current role, in 2010-2011 he served as the country’s Ambassador to the European Union.
Ted Whiteside
Before taking up his current duties, Ted Whiteside he was Secretary of the North Atlantic Council, and Director of the NATO Ministerial and Summit Task Force in Brussels. Prior to that, he held the position of Director of the NATO Weapons of Mass Destruction Centre. In his current capacity, he is responsible for guiding the Alliance’s public diplomacy strategies, and overseeing their implementation in member nations and partner countries. He is a graduate of the NATO Defence College, did postgraduate studies in International Politics in Brussels, and holds an MA from the University of Montréal and a BA from York University.
Keynote speech: The Future of the NATO Partnerships with key partners on NATO’s Eastern Frontier
Iurie Leanca
Iurie Leanca graduated from Moscow State Institute of International Relations and from 1986 until 1993, he worked at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Moldova. Between 1993 and 1997, he was the Minister-Counselor at the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in Washington, D.C. He was deputy Foreign Affairs Minister (1998-1999) and first deputy Foreign Affairs Minister (1999–2002). He was the acting Foreign Minister of Moldova (27 July — 4 September 2001). He was appointed Acting Prime Minister on 25 April 2013. Mr. Leanca speaks Romanian, Russian, English, French, Hungarian and Bulgarian.
Panel I: Migration as a Long-term Challenge
Chaired by:
Edit Inotai
After earning her PhD at Corvinus University of Budapest, Edit Inotai worked as a correspondent in Berlin. She served as a journalist at the Foreign Desk of Népszabadság from 1997-2003 and her main areas were European affairs, Spain and Latin-America. In 2010 she was appointed Foreign Editor of Népszabadság and served in this position until 2014. Currently she is a Senior Fellow at CEID.
Speakers:
Michael Spindelegger
Michael Spindelegger graduated in Law from the University of Vienna. As a member of the Austrian People’s Party (ÖVP) Mr. Spindelegger served as an MP in the Austrian Parliament from 1993 until 2014. Between 2008 and 2013 he was Foreign Minister of Austria, in April 2011 he additionally took over the position of Vice Chancellor. He was elected ÖVP Party Chairman in May 2011 and became Austria’s Finance Minister in 2013 He resigned in 2014. Currently he is the Director of the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD).
Zsolt Németh
Zsolt Németh graduated from the Budapest University of Economics in 1987, and later studied Political Science at St. Antony College, Oxford. He has been an MP in the Hungarian Parliament since 1990. He became a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in 1994, when he also joined the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe. He served as State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1998-2002) and Parliamentary State Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2010-2014). Currently Mr. Németh is the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Álvaro Renedo Zalba
Álvaro Renedo Zalba is a career diplomat and an Associate Professor at the Complutense University of Madrid. Currently, he serves as the Senior Advisor for European Affairs and G20 in the Cabinet of the Presidency of the Spanish Government, after holding several different positions in the State Secretary for the European Union. He graduated in Law and he holds a degree in Business Science from the University Pontifica Comillas (ICADE).
Gueorg Gueorguiev
Gueorg Gueorguiev graduated in Political Sciences from the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. Since 2010, he has been a member of the political party “GERB”. In July 2014 he was elected president of the youth organization of the party. Since November 2015 he has been an MP of the National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria. Currently he is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee.
Panel II: NATO-Russia Relationship: The End of a Beautiful Friendship
Chaired by:
Martin Michelot
Martin Michelot, a native of Lyon, France, is a non-resident fellow at GMF’s Paris office. With GMF since January 2012, Michelot specializes in U.S. foreign policy, strategic, and geopolitical affairs; U.S. domestic politics; transatlantic relations; and the studies of think tanks. He is a graduate of Sciences Po Lyon, where he studied international relations and European affairs. Michelot is a regular contributor to various news outlets on French and European defence policy and transatlantic relations, and appears on France 24 and Radio France to discuss U.S. domestic and foreign policy.
Speakers:
General Rainer Meyer zum Felde
Brigadier General Rainer Meyer zum Felde is currently the Defence Advisor at the Permanent Delegation of Germany to NATO and the German Representative in NATO’s Defence Policy and Planning Committee. He assumed this position in July 2013. Prior to this, he served for two years as Vice President of the Federal Academy for Security Studies in Berlin. He has gathered extensive experience at NATO through integrated assignments at both Strategic Command Headquarters (Allied Command Operations/SHAPE in Mons, from 2002 to 2003; Allied Command Transformation in Norfolk, USA, from 2003 to 2006), as well as through national assignments at NATO HQ in Brussels.
Boris Shmelev
Boris Shmelev is the Director of the Comparative Political Studies department in the International Economic and Political Studies Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Bogomolov Institute) and Vice Rector of the Moscow International High School (International University). He used to be a diplomat until 1975, and he held the position of Vice Rector of the Diplomatic Academy of Soviet Ministry of Foreign Affairs until 1991. He is the member of the editorial board of the Russian scientific journal ’Power’.
Janis Berzins
Janis Berzins earned his BA in Economics at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, and his Master in Economics at the State University of Sao Paulo Julio de Mesquita Filho. He also holds a PhD in Political Science and Economics from the University of Latvia. He is the Director of the Center for Security and Strategic Research at the National Defence Academy of Latvia since 2012. He became a member of The Potomac Foundation in 2016.
Desmond Bowen
Desmond Bowen completed his career as the UK Ministry of Defence’s Director General for Security Policy in 2008; he is now the (part-time) Staff Counsellor for the intelligence and security services, and was a member (and then chair) of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters. He has had a very wide range of policy responsibilities covering counter terrorism in Northern Ireland, arms control and disarmament, British military engagement overseas, and relations with NATO and the EU. He was the Director of the private office of the NATO Secretary General Lord George Robertson (1999-2001), in Brussels; Director of Operational Policy in the MOD (2001-2); Deputy Head of the Overseas and Defence Secretariat in the Cabinet Office (2002-2004). Desmond Bowen was educated at Oxford and was a fellow at Harvard’s Center for International Affairs. He is a visiting Professor at Reading University.
Keynote speech: The Warsaw Summit – A Hungarian Perspective
Tamás Vargha
Tamás Vargha has been Deputy Minister of Defence in the Hungarian Ministry of Defence since 2012. He has been a Member of Parliament since 2010. Mr. Vargha was a Member of the Committee of Foreign Affairs, and a Member of the Committee of Defence and Homeland Security in the Hungarian National Assembly. Tamás Vargha is member of the Hungarian political party FIDESZ.
Panel III: Collective Defence
Chaired by:
Wojciech Lorenz
Wojciech Lorenz is a Senior Research Fellow at PISM. He is an international security and defence industry analyst. His research includes NATO, Polish security and defence policy, international conflicts and cybersecurity. In 2013/2014 he served as a civilian specialist in the ISAF mission in Afghanistan. Prior to joining PISM in 2012, he had covered international affairs as an editor of the Polish Section of the BBC World Service and, subsequently, worked as a reporter of daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita. Wojciech graduated from the University of Wroclaw and completed post-graduate studies in International Relations and Diplomacy at Collegium Civitas in Warsaw.
Speakers:
Jiří Schneider
Jiří Schneider is currently the Executive Director of Aspen Institute Prague. In 2010-2013, he served as First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic. Between 2005-2010, Mr. Schneider was Program Director of the Prague Security Studies Institute. He was formerly Head of the Policy Planning Department of the Czech Ministry of Foreign Affairs (1993-1994, 1999-2001, 2003) and Ambassador of the Czech Republic to Israel (1995- 1998). Mr. Schneider was an International Policy Fellow at the Open Society Institute in Budapest (2002) and an MP of the Czechoslovak Federal Assembly (1990-1992). He is a graduate of Charles University and University of Cambridge.
Péter Siklósi
Péter Siklósi is Deputy State Secretary for Defence Policy and Planning of Ministry of Defence of Hungary. Previously, he held various positions including Defence Counsellor at the Permanent Delegation of the Republic of Hungary to NATO or the Head of Defence Policy Department at Ministry of Defence of Hungary. He advised the Hungarian Prime Minister and Vice-Chairman of Parliamentary Defence Committee on security and defence policy affairs. He holds an MA degree in International Relations from the University of Economics, Budapest and is a graduate of the George C. Marshall Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-Partenkirchen in Germany.
Marian Majer
Currently Director of the Slovak Security Policy Institute (SSPI), Marian Majer previously worked as a Senior Fellow for Security and Defence in other non-governmental think-tanks, such as the Central European Policy Institute (CEPI) and the Centre for European and North Atlantic Affairs (CENAA). He used to be Political Director at the Ministry of Defence of the Slovak Republic. He graduated from the Philosophical Faculty at Comenius University in Bratislava where he is currently lecturing in international security.
The event is supported by:
Project partners:
