 Hello, hello, may I ask everyone to take your seats and the last participants to come back in, colleagues, if you can guide them back to the room, that would be great. If everyone gets back to his seat or her seat, we can start. The next session would be great because it's a crowded one. So welcome back and thank you very much in the first place for staying with us for the afternoon and it will be totally worth it, I promise you. Our next panel discussion is about how the EU, the EU member states and their partners can cooperate on supporting democracy. As you know, when much to our delight, the appetite for teaming up on democracy is picking up over the past years. And so initiatives such as Team Europe Democracy, the US government summit for democracy and various thematic international coalitions saw the light. We have key experts in our panel this afternoon and also in the room and so we hope that you will all enlighten us on that myriad of opportunities that we can see for EU institutions, EU member states and internationally. So this panel will also reflect on the narratives. It is already a question that has been touched upon in the previous sessions. This panel will be in the capable hands of Moa Lagerkranz, who is the deputy director at the Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Department for International Law, Human Rights and Treaty Law, which hosted democracy until very recently, that department. So Moa Lagerkranz is together with the colleagues of the Swedish MFA, literally and metaphorically an authority on democracy. So she has been the lead guide also on our projects and on the Swedish end and international ideas. Of course, very grateful and we owe you many hours of coordination meetings from the early design process already. So a big thank you for that and thank you for raising attention for the project. So ladies and gentlemen, with great pleasure that I pass on the floor. Thank you. Thank you so much. Good afternoon, everyone. Happy that some of you stayed on with us after lunch. I think this panel will be a highlight of the day. I think today we heard many people speak about how we need to partner with others, with civil society, with other countries, with like-minded partners in order to promote democracy. You cannot do it alone and EU member states certainly cannot do it alone. So very happy to be hosting this panel here today with a large and very broad representatives of different partners for us. So during this session, we will focus on how EU institutions and EU member states can work with partners, both in other governments and other actors from academia and civil society, business, et cetera, and how we can promote democracy. So we've asked our different panelists here today to reflect on a number of things, like how we can build and further align the democracy agenda of key like-minded actors, and how we can build a global community around democracy, avoiding and preventing the us versus them perceptions, like we've heard throughout the day. We have a very impressive lineup of panelists here today. It's not only impressive in terms of who the people are on the panel, but also in numbers, so we have six panelists. So I will have to be very hard on time on management. I apologize in advance for that, but I want to leave room for questions at the end. So we will keep the intervention in the beginning quite short and then to allow for more discussion towards the end. So we will start with five minutes, introductory remarks from each panelist, and we will start by giving the floor to Heidi Hautala, a member and vice president of the European Parliament representing Finland and the Greens. Heidi Hautala serves as a member of the Committee on International Trade and of the Subcommittee on Human Rights. And before being elected to the European Parliament, she has served in many different positions, among other things, as a member of the Parliament in Finland. So the floor is yours. Yes, yes, good afternoon. I'm delighted to speak in an event co-organized by the International Idea and the Swedish Council presidency, because do you know that Sweden must be the only country in the world which has, at least has had, Minister for Democracy? Just like France is the only country in the world which has a Minister for Solidarity. I think this is very illustrative of the sort of national identities in politics. Anyway, so the questions here are, how are we going to work together to support democracy worldwide? And obviously, there's a general feeling that we are not at the moment winning a lot with our messages of democracy and rights, that China is trying to change the world order, almost like they say, the post-World, post-Second World War human rights order, international law, and that we are a little bit also in difficulties because the Russian narrative worldwide, especially in the global south, seems to be gaining ground still, very much based on this information and direct lies. So I feel more and more that the voices from among the EU institutions are saying that we have to take this new reality into account. Then what would it then mean? So I think we have all the rights and justification for also coming up with some innovative instruments in our external relations, like what now has been named the autonomous instruments. You know what I'm talking about, the corporate sustainability due diligence, anti-deforestation regulation, regulation against the placing in the internal market of products produced with forced labour. And I very much myself behind this agenda and even sort of being one of the sort of driving forces in the European Parliament, but we have to take into account that from the perspective of the global south, it may seem that we are again imposing something that they didn't ask. And my answer to that would be that we need to work very closely with the producer countries in the global south to help them to find the right capacity to respond to these new requirements that we as European citizens and companies are putting on them. So that's one thing that we need much more attention on the, let's say, maybe even unintended consequences of some of our wonderful instruments. So this means that we have to employ the whole of government approach. And I think the European Commission is understanding this quite well. This all, of course, has a link to democracy directly. Looking at the European Parliament's activities in external relations, then I don't think I should not speak about the Qatar-Morocco scandal that we just had, which means that we have to pay much attention to how we will avoid giving the voice and the representation of our institutions to people who are actually going against the Parliament's agenda. And I think this is a golden opportunity now to put the House in order. We cannot any more go without proper sanctions against those who go to observe sham elections, for instance. There are no real instruments. Only that somebody who is doing that is who is justifying, let's say, fake elections in Azerbaijan or even Russia. They can be excluded from official election observation missions for the rest of the legislative period. But that's it. So we have friendship groups that have become clearly channels of undue foreign influence to European Parliament and to European Union policies. So this is all that we need to address now. So then I would perhaps take a little bit, let's say, a more sort of forward-looking, constructive note that we also have examples of wonderful cooperation between the community working towards democracy. And I would like to mention something which is also very topical. Do we have two minutes? Two, yeah. Myanmar. Just tomorrow, two years ago, the military coup happened in Myanmar. The military took over and ousted an elected parliament. The committee representing the Pewdang Su Hruto, it's called now. The ousted parliament is working and there's an ousted government, national unity government. And we have wonderful examples of how international democracy promoting organizations, the EU, the European, including the European Parliament, are working to support these democratic forces under extreme difficulty. And I actually, I know a little bit more about this because I woke up today at four o'clock to make an address to this ousted parliament, which was in the fifth session at four thirty. It started a local time here. So I was amazed that this guy in under this kind of conditions, they, they are supporting, they are trying to help help sixty thousand pregnant women in the country. They are trying to to reconstruct seven hundred schools which have been bombarded by the army, which is really going against the people. So for me, this is a good example that also within the EU that the European Parliament and the external action service, our diplomats with parliamentarians are actually working very much on the same agenda. And together with the organizations such as International Idea. And I hope this kind of partnerships for promoting democracy in really dire situations will continue because we can spend hours on complaining how autocracies are winning, but we need to do something to stop them. Thank you. Thank you very much, Miss Hautala. And very good also to bring up the issue of anti-corruption and how it links to the democracy agenda. So maybe we can come back to that and the questions. I think that was a very good point. So next I want to welcome Cara McDonald, Deputy Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor at the US Department of State. Cara traveled all the way from Washington to be with us today. So thank you very much for that. And we very much look forward to hearing about what your priorities and what you have to say and not least about the Summit for Democracy, which have been mentioned here several times today. You oversee the bureau's work on Europe, South and East, South and Central Asia, and the Multilateral and Global Affairs. And you have worked in Europe previously in Strasbourg, for example. So very welcome. Thank you very much, Moa. And thank you to the Swedish Presidency International idea. It's a pleasure and an honor to be accompanied by such distinguished panelists. This event is so important and I'm sure you discussed it earlier this morning because of these disturbing trends that we see globally. We know from civil society, from think tanks, from research, to academia, the global attrition in democracy, the recession that's occurring, human rights defenders, journalists facing increasing dangers on an individual as well as organizational basis, widespread corruption we discussed. And I remember saying at the Vilnius Conference on the Future of Democracy in November of 2021, let this not be our future. We have an opportunity to have this not be our future. And I think the fact that so many groups and governments have come together in a commitment to democratic principles really talks about the strength that is in unity. And I was so pleased to see unity and security as one of the tenets, as one of the priorities of the Swedish Presidency. So thank you for that. I think in this context, we also see a very simple correlation. And that is it is governments which trample rights at home that also don't respect territorial integrity and sovereignty abroad. They are two sides of the same coin. It is governments that are unchecked in their abuses at home and abroad that present the greatest threat to security and are also emboldened when they are unchecked in their abusive aims and aggression. These trends, of course, have been very evident on the European continent. But I think it is important to note that not just the transatlantic relationship, but globally there has been a unification in condemning this on the European continent and pushing back on that aggression and authoritarianism together. And again, this theme of unity, I think, continues because it is in itself a tool. But together we are, of course, promoting accountability. And these are all tools that I think are getting a lot of exercise right now. So tools to document, to investigate abuses and crimes, strengthening legal mechanisms, using every multilateral tool at our disposal, invocation of the Moscow Mechanism, suspension of Russia from the Human Rights Council, condemnations in Geneva, Vienna, New York, the Commission of Inquiry, the Special Rapporteur on Russia. I mean, it's really a tremendous tool basket that we have. And then, of course, I like the reference to some of the some of the sanctions tools because these have also, I think, gotten a lot of attention. And again, I look at the unity question, the ability to mobilize as a global community in the use of some of these tools. So I think it is very much those who cherish democratic principles and freedom. It is this spirit of moving in an offensive posture, moving with an affirmative agenda for democratic renewal that we come together. And it's in that spirit that our president at the U.N. General Assembly spoke about a clear commitment to strengthening democracy both at home as well as abroad and that democracy is really an instrument, really the greatest instrument humanity has to try to address the myriad challenges of our time from health, security, et cetera, prosperity, et cetera. And I think our secretary very much sees and we all feel this responsibility to show that democracy can deliver against these challenges. It's why President Biden decided to hold the summit for democracy that was held in December 2021, bringing together over 100 heads of state and government, civil society leaders, private sector leaders. I want to thank all of the governments represented. I see many colleagues here today, the Swedish government for their engagement, civil society actors. We know from the U.S. side it's a bit of a daunting task to take on this notion of a summit for democracy and what will come out of it. And we're so grateful for the governments and the private actors, civil society actors, organizations like International Idea that have stuck their oar in the water and help propel this boat forward. That has been incredibly, incredibly helpful and we are grateful for that. It is simply a representation of the fact that in our interconnected world, you cannot get away from collective action. You must have collective action in order to solve these challenges. I want to thank the co-hosts of the Second Democracy Summit, which will take place on March 29 and 30. We are co-hosting this summit with the governments of Costa Rica, Zambia, Republic of Korea and the Netherlands. We anticipate that day one, which will be March 29, will be a leaders summit. It will be virtual online, looking to have five or so plenaries, diving into questions of how can democracies deliver examples of where that has occurred? How is it that democracy and the tools of democracy look at and solve security issues, solve economic issues, prosperity issues? Day two, we anticipate that each co-host, including the United States, will take on in a hybrid fashion, so both in person and virtual, at the ministerial level, a particular thematic topic. So for the United States, we are looking at tech for democracy, technology for democracy. Our Costa Rican partners and friends are looking at a very important issue of youth and the role of youth within civic and political life. The Netherlands is taking on the daunting challenge of media freedom, a space that we have seen absolutely under attack in recent years and that seems to be only increasing. Korea looking at the questions of anti-corruption. And we've had a number of cohorts in this year of action of the Summit for Democracy that have been working on anti-corruption issues. And our colleagues from Zambia looking at the questions of elections and electoral strengthening, institution strengthening. And the idea is to have some of the cohorts that have been working through this year of action to be able to showcase and bring to the fore some of the outcomes of that work. I think it's important to note that all of this work is dependent on propelling forward the momentum. And I think this is again why events like this are so important. We want to help capture the spirit that has come to the table. Over 750 commitments were made by governments as to how they would contribute to this project. I think March, the end of March is an opportunity to take stock a bit. What's working? What's not? What has come to fruition? Which what has produced a result? And to go from there then in terms of what is the onward trajectory of sort of this legacy, these results in this work. And I think if we look at that our secretary likes to say that if the legacy of the last century is anything it is that the lesson is that the world does not organize itself. So I we take that very much as an understanding of the need for leadership, the need for engagement, the need for unity to propel forward this agenda. And I think we have lots of global and multilateral multi stakeholder architecture on which to work groups like international idea, OSCE, UN, et cetera. But we hope that a lot of these organizations we feel are well placed to continue and to propel forward a lot of this work from the summit. So I guess I would just leave it there and I look forward to any discussion in the question answer. But I guess I would leave just with a parting thought, which is that, you know, we know that the challenges are formidable. We see these trends and I, you know, I keep saying, let this not be our future. But we really honestly believe that the courage of those fighting for justice, for freedom in whatever context that looks globally, that that is more formidable than the challenges we face. Thank you. Thank you, Kara, so much for that. Just one question that was posed earlier was where do you see this going after the second summit? So maybe if you just want to address that very quickly before we move on. Sure, I'm happy to. So we are very much in deliberation. I'll be honest about that question and we welcome thoughts. We know that we want to keep up momentum. The objectives and aims are to keep up momentum to propel this work forward. I think we know that there's a lot of architecture for supporting democracy. We're in the 75th anniversary year of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We know that there's architecture that exists. There are organizations like International Idea, like the Open Government Partnership, like the Community of Democracies that exist for these purposes. So I think those are well placed in some ways to help carry on pieces of this legacy. We're in a deliberative phase right now. So of course, as we have more information, we will certainly put it out. But I think also the fact that we have looked at this co-host model, again, we have very much been grateful for the leadership of other countries stepping forward to help propel this forward because we know that this is not dependent on one government alone. But in terms of the direct aftermath or the legacy, that's very much in discussion right now. So I look forward to hearing ideas as well. Thanks. Thank you so much. So now we will move on to Mariam Fanden-Hövel. She is Director General for External Relations at the Council of the European Union since April 2021. She is the Chief Foreign Policy Advisor to Charles Michel, a President of the European Council, and acts as Deputy to his Head of Cabinet. The floor is yours. Thank you very much for the introduction and thank you to Idea International and the Swedish Presidency of the Council for organizing this and for inviting me. In the Council, we always like to go back to the treaties. Whenever we start something, we always go back to the source and the treaties on the European Union remind us that democracy is a principle that created the union, that inspired its development and that inspires and still inspires its enlargement. But it is also the principle that we want to advance in the world. So just to kickstart with reminding us what is in the treaties that we member states have designed. And when looking at our external action and Idea has reflected it so well in the report that we have come a long way. The last decades have shown a proliferation of actions in the global stage. So starting with the 2012 Strategic Framework on Human Rights and Development, there were council conclusions in 2019 which reinforced also the principle of democracy as a central principle of our external action. There are three action plans on human rights and democracy. But it has also been mainstreamed in other documents and in other policies and in this respect I would like also to mention how the strategic compass which carries the important principle of the importance of democracy. I believe that the report that Idea International has produced and published is an excellent way to look at what we have done, but mainly also what we can do more in the future. I would like to pick up on three themes and perhaps as a foot for thought and most of these themes are of course already reflected in the report. The first theme is the EU cannot do it alone. Ankara has already reflected on the principle that the US cannot do it alone. So there is first of all, there is no single definition of democracy. It comes in different shapes and in different forms. But what we all know is that it is a very complex system that affects all spheres of government and all spheres of society. It's in fact, it's a value but it's also an aspiration and as we have seen in the European Union, democracy is the principle, the foundation for long-term socioeconomic development. Promoting democracy touches also upon us or is absolutely linked to the promotion of media freedom and fighting corruption. So it really has many facets that ensure that democracy can progress and can be strengthened. Democracy is also inseparable from fundamental rights and from the rule of law, but it can also be in tension with them. So considering all this, that there are different forms, different shapes, that it has a tremendous reach and tremendous impact on lives of citizens, it's a huge challenge for the EU to translate this into effective and coherent external action. And for us to be effective, we need to work with different actors. We have, first of all, our like-minded partners with whom we can work together, but there is also civil society, civil society within our own countries, but also abroad, international organization, regional organization, and I think that we should also be looking more and more to be working with, let's say, more challenging interlocutors, but this really merits a good discussion on how we take this forward, so that we do not only talk to those with whom we agree and who agree with us, but that we extend this group. My second point is the EU needs to remain vigilant and we need to continue to protect our values. There is no time for complacency. In this current geopolitical tensions, we have both after the pandemic or during the pandemic, but even it started before that, but mainly also with the war of aggression, Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine. We have within the Council, within the European Union, taken steps to protect our critical infrastructure. The Commission has presented Council recommendations. The Council have accepted these recommendations. Member States will implement them and this is all to make us more vigilant. Like we live in times with challenges, with threats, and in a volatile situation, and there is less and less a boundary between external and internal. So I would say our democracy systems, our democracies is also a form of critical infrastructure. It's a value, but it's also a set of political social legal norms that not only underpin our identity as EU citizens, but it is also the guarantee for our long-term security and welfare. I believe that our external action on democracy should also address this, whether the threats come from inside or outside, whether they are internal or external, I think that in our policies, we have to keep this in mind. This of course touches upon this information or any attempt to undermine our democracy, foreign interference. And I believe that we have already taken some steps, but I really think that in the future we will be looking to more new initiatives to reinforce the resilience and strengthen our democratic systems against the background of this very difficult geopolitical context. Then the third element is let's say the current geopolitical element and also the opportunity that we have and that we need to seize to be able to lead. We have seen, it's almost a year ago that Russia invaded Ukraine and that since then we have lived on a day-by-day basis to address and help Ukraine to fight the war of aggression and to exercise its inherent right to self-defense. And for me, this self-defense and our assistance to help Ukraine is all about defending democracy. Ukraine is very much involved in defending its democracy and I strongly believe that Russia is afraid of democracy. So it's all about democracy, what we see happening on our continent. Ukraine and the Ukrainians want to make their own political choices. They want to determine their own future. And the EU and member states support in helping Ukraine in all its different forms is really helping preserve Ukraine to preserve the path of democracy that Ukraine has chosen. And Ukraine and the Ukrainians have chosen. They have chosen for democracy. They are under attack and we help them to counter this attack and that they can pursue this path that they have chosen. One can even say that the commitments but also the actions and the tools and different of those tools have already been mentioned including the sanctions against Russia and Belarus and Iran are a demonstration of our very strong support for democracy. One can also say as Karol you already said it, it's two sides of the same coin. When you are repressive internally, you are aggressive externally. So it's for the principle of defending democracy but it is also in our own interest to be leading on this issue and to take bold decisions, to take bold actions as we have done the last year. I believe that we should continue very strongly in this. So democracy and democracy action cannot be put in a box, that you know and then take out of the drawer. No, it has really to inspire all our actions in our external actions and our external policies but also when we look at our internal EU policies and I would say democracy both in times of peace and in times of war. So these were just three thoughts and perhaps to kick start the discussion. Just one last comment also linked to the war on our continent. The fact that as European political community we come together, the first meeting was in Prague in October the next meeting will be 1st of June in Moldova is absolutely also a strong reflection of the states that, well who are our neighbors here on this continent, whether they are in the EU or outside of the EU wanting to be in the EU or having left the EU. But what we have in common is that we say yes to democracy and we say no to those countries who through aggression violated the UN Charter. So this by way of introduction. Thank you. I really like this comment. Democracy is a critical infrastructure. I think that that's a very important takeaway and also the link between internal repression and external aggression that you pointed to, very important. Now I want to give the floor to our second guest who's been traveling from far away. Dr. Laurence Moinanyanda, very happy to have you here. You are a special assistant to the president of Sambia and a summit for democracy focal point. You are adjunct research assistant professor at the Boston University at the School of Public Health and you worked, among other things, as director of the Sambia Emory HIV Research Project from 2007 to 2010. Very welcome. Thank you very much. Very impressed. The moderator actually managed to pronounce my surname. Even people in my own country have difficulties saying my surname. So I'd like to also thank the Swedish presidency at the Council of the EU and the International Idea. So very briefly, I'll just give you a very, very short summary of where I come from. So Sambia returned to multi-party democracy in 1991 after 27 years of one-party state. So at that time, we got independent in 1964, but in 1991, the people of Sambia decided that they wanted to return back to democracy and things were moving up very well. In fact, in Southern Africa, I think we are the only country that has changed the president's democratically and removing the party from the colonial, you know, the party that removed that, fought for independence. It's the fourth time that has happened. So you can see that we are entrenched. The people want to be democratic, but unfortunately, what happened before 2021, the seven years before 2021, was a classic backslide which has been talked about before in previous sessions, where we saw the backsliding in democratic principles in the country. There was constriction in media space, freedom of association. The opposition leaders were always imprisoned. This was very alien to the Sambia culture, really. So the president, who I serve right now, campaigned on the premise of democracy and respect of fundamental rights, freedoms and liberty, respect for democracy, and we won the election in 2021. Now, I've been asked here to talk about how we align with the EU and also talk briefly about how we'll be hosting the Summit for Democracy. We have a very long history with the EU. They have supported us in different ways. And in fact, I would say in 2021, when politically, we were at the bottom, like politically, the EU supported a very robust election monitoring and observation mission to Sambia just to counter-check the fraudulent elections that had taken place previously. So that helped greatly, really, to see that the elections to a certain extent were less fraudulent than the two previous elections. And our president won with a landslide majority. Now, the issue really is going forward. The elections were won after the country had gotten itself in a very deep debt burden, a very indebted situation. We still owe a lot of money that was contracted from the Chinese mostly. Most of our debt is owed to them. So I would say starting this new government was very, very difficult how to support social services, education, and everything in a situation where you're so highly indebted. But despite the temptation and the vulnerability to go the easy way, we decided that we are going to respect the rule of law. Because the previous government had, before the previous government, we had an economy that was growing at 7%. There was accountability. The corruption was very minimal. People were really scared to do Eddie Rock do it. But when the president, when I was a died, and then the previous government went on, all these things like democracy, respect of human rights, we just backslid and the economy tanked. We had reached the hippie completion point, meaning we did not owe any money to external organizations. The new government went on a reckless campaign to borrow extensively, mostly from the Chinese, and got us to a point where the debt was unsustainable. And we needed to qualify for an IMF bailout, which we could not in the previous government, but we since have gotten to a place where we are negotiating now with the IMF for a bailout and a common framework. And everybody is looking forward to this because this will be the first time really that the Chinese have been brought to the table to negotiate the debt situation in a common framework. So the engagement we've had with the EU and the Western democracies has been mostly to support civil society. But we would like to see, like the ambassador from Sabia had mentioned this morning, probably if we also could look at how we can support the private sector. The private sector, not to negate civil society, but the private sector brings with it corporate governance. They bring with it the culture that are motivated by efficiencies, which have been destroyed. And we hope that they can create employment. The number one issue that we have is unemployment. And to have democracy, the dividends of democracy, people have to see that they have opportunities. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And private sector is best placed to create the job opportunities that we so seriously need. I mean, it's the very large youth unemployment. And we are very cognizant that the people of Zambia now have changed government four times. And we know that if we don't deliver, they are going to change this government through the ballot. So it will be important for the people there to see that democracy actually works. We have a very strong belief, really, that democracy can work. And from the part of the world where I come from, the most stable and prosperous government is Botswana, aside from South Africa. Excluding South Africa for obvious reasons. But in Botswana, they are the most prosperous. They have a GDP. They provide services. And they've been a democracy. So we have an example of high democracy in that part of the world, can work and deliver for its people. And we're looking forward that we could join and be a country that would deliver on democracy and its dividends. Now, coming to the Summit for Democracy, this will be the second time we'll be participating. In 2021, in December, the Summit for Democracy was hosted by President Biden. And we took part virtually. We have agreed to co-host. Now, on both occasions, we have been threatened by very strong countries that we were taking the wrong move. We should not be in a place where the Taiwanese will be invited. But we are a sovereign country, and we have chosen the path of democracy. And the need is the debt that we owe, a very huge debt that really impedes the way we can run government. We have values which we subscribe to. And we're not going to give them up that because somebody is going to tell us, you cannot host the Summit for Democracy. So we are aligned with the US and the EU on democratic principles. And to that effect, we'll be hosting on the 29th and 30th of March 20 other African countries that think in a similar way. We're going to invite a robust civil society participation from all these countries. And what we're hoping really is to discuss the sub theme will be free and fair elections in Africa. We are hoping that we can discuss how we can overcome fraudulent elections, reinforce democracy, and then just these strength in numbers. And hopefully, if we are going to have the third Summit for Democracy, there will be more than 20 countries and African countries that will be participating in that. I think with that, my time is off. And thank you very much for your attention. Thank you, Dr. Lawrence. So impressive that you're here and what you are doing. Samantha Powers spoke about bright spots around the world. And I think Sambia is truly a bright spot. So happy to have you with us. I want to now give the floor to Ms. Cecilia Rostrom-Duin, our ambassador for human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. You have a very long experience working in the foreign ministry and in the UN. She's had positions such as head of the Asia Department in our ministry and also ambassador in Vilnius. And she served in many different positions. So very welcome, Cecilia. I'm happy to have you here. Thank you very much, Moa. I'm very happy to be also in this panel with participants and colleagues from other parts of the world because as has been really underlined, this is something that we need to do together. We meet at a very dark time with a war of aggression raging not far from us and also against the backdrop of global democratic backsliding. My state secretary opened today by referring to the global state of democracy, which is now back at 1989. So this is sort of the chilling context, but one of the really, really things that are giving hope and inspire at this point in time is the fact that democracies are increasingly working together, that there is momentum in working together for international partnerships and for cooperation. I have been asked to comment a little bit on what Sweden wishes to do during its presidency in this regard and the most important task is, of course, for us to do what we can to contribute to this continued momentum and contribute to even further strengthening the very important role that the European Union has as a global democracy actor. Democracy and the rule of law and respect for human rights are part of our EU presidency priorities, but they are, of course, more than priorities. They are the foundation. They are the basis of who we are. So this is a time when we need to mobilize collective strength. We have talked a lot about the Summit for Democracy. We are here thanks to International Idea, which is a very important platform, but I'd like to make three main points with reference to the report, its recommendations, and what we would like to continue to work on from our side. The first concerns the need for knowledge building, the need for evidence-based policy making and which is intimately linked to the key recommendation and theme of a strengthened narrative on democracy, which is really showing that democracy delivers. This is not something that we are simply saying. This is something that is underpinned by very solid and strong evidence by research, and it is really time to use that in order to form a more solutions-based narrative, but it must also be based on a collective analysis on a sort of shared assessment of where we stand. So we think it is very important to continue to invest in following democratic developments in our own countries, in our own continent, but globally, and that is particularly important at a time when changes are often happening in very small steps. So knowing what is happening, it is absolutely key, and I think Idea is providing a lot of resources in that regard. We have also other important actors. The varieties of democracy is one of them, and I think we have a very important recommendation to work on there. Secondly, the role of civil society, and that is highlighted throughout the report, but it is a task that, where we all need to recognize that it is an ambition, it is a goal, we are developing our working methods, but we are far from there yet, both in how we work on a national level and how we work in partnerships globally. This is an area where we can benefit a lot from sharing experiences, but where we also need to look at the concrete models in a very operational way. How are we setting up our funding models? How can we ensure that we are flexible enough so that we reach the grassroots who need to own the agenda? Because I think Kevin Casa-Samora opened today by saying that the civil society is, of course, where we see the energy to revitalize democracy worldwide and also to defend democracy and human rights. So this is an area where we must invest even more. The third area that I will just briefly mention is the need for us as democracies to invest in multilateral cooperation in the frameworks and platforms that we have, which together form the basis, the rules-based order that we want to defend. It has been mentioned that this is a year of anniversaries. We have the UN Human Rights Declaration which will create and generate a lot of focus and discussion, but we also have very other important processes where it is really key to find the ways where we can work in a cross-regional fashion, where we can identify the areas where we share both challenges but interests in finding solutions. And let me end by just mentioning one important process linked also to discussions earlier here today, which is the digital development, which we know are offering immense opportunities for democratic engagement, but also present huge challenges. The EU is doing a lot, but we need to work on a global level. And the global digital compact is a process which we see as very important in this regard. Sweden is honored to have been asked, or my colleague, our UN ambassador in New York, has been asked to co-facilitate together with Rwanda that process, which definitely needs to be a very inclusive one. And Dr. Lawrence, when I visited your country, I was struck by the fact that the discussions that are being held in Zambia, relating to online threats, harassment against women and girls, affecting their political participation, are exactly the same challenges, the same topics that we have been discussing, for instance, in the Nordic region. So there are many other areas where we need to work together as this, but I will end there in the interest of time, and we'll be happy to participate in the discussion. Thank you so much. Thank you, Ambassador. And now, finally, I will give the floor to Ken Godfrey, the Executive Director of European Partnership for Democracy. You've led the organization since 2015, and prior to that, you have been working in different organizations, such as the UN, the EU, and the European Parliament. So please, the floor is yours. Thank you very much, Moa. So I'm the last of six, so I thought maybe I should try and disagree with everybody and everything that's been said to add some spice to our soup. But I don't think it's very difficult for me to do that. What I will say is a bit of a sort of democracy in foreign affairs at Geek is go into some of the details. I'd like to really congratulate the team who did the report. It's a very good report. I really, particularly the specific recommendations. So going beyond some of those higher-level recommendations and looking at exactly what could be done, I think those are very welcome, such as the position of the mandate of the USR, civil society support, how to leverage trade more in relation to European foreign policy, the European Diplomatic Academy, et cetera, et cetera. I think they're very good recommendations. Now, my organization, we released a report yesterday. It's different. It looks at European democracy support in the last year, so the last calendar year. We do this with the think tank, Carnegie. We do it every year. So I thought I'd been asked also to give some snippets of what we found in the last year. Actually, one of them kind of links quite strongly with the report, and that's on narrative. Actually, what we found in the last years definitely distinct change in the narrative, already, actually, so I would say that there's already been a new narrative that's developed in the last 12 months, and that's very much in a European perspective about the divisions between democracy and authoritarian regimes. Of course, we've heard it already today from a number of speakers, and it's something that's really come to the fore in the last 12 months because of the invasion, the Russian aggression in Ukraine. We don't see that in all places around the world, however. So this is very much something that is foremost in our consciousness on the European continent, but not everywhere. As a sort of corollary to this, there's also the fact that policies have been changing over a number of years. There's been improvement in the way the European Union, this is mentioned in the report, the European Union has tackled issues of democracy, but we still see a very distinct disconnect between those principles and the speeches made by politicians and leaders at European level and actually the policies that follow on the ground. And so the report's very welcome focusing on some of those particular policies because they're very important. It's important to get into the weeds in order to see exactly what can be done. So somehow there's a bit of a split personality sometimes at European level. What I will say in the last year, the very distinct major change at European level has been the accession, the opening of accession to two new countries, or three, excuse me, and as well as candidate potential European perspective of Georgia, so potential that they would also join that camp. This is a big change considering that this was locked, this process was locked for a long time. We also, I think this bears mentioning the fact there are some member states which have stepped up. Sweden has been at the forefront for a long time in terms of democracy support. We heard earlier, 2009, Sweden was really driving those council conclusions. There are some other member states which have taken in the last three or four years a more prominent role or at least both financially in terms of their resources but also politically thought about democracy a bit more. Those are particularly in the center and east of Europe and there's a number of them but the Baltic states, the Czech Republic, given the change of government and also France, I would highlight France in the last few years as well. So somehow there's a sort of, the invasion was a wake-up call but it wasn't a wake-up call operationally. It was a wake-up call politically and we're waiting to see what will happen afterwards operationally. And the one thing I would say with regards to the study is that it's very important to look at the European Union but it's really important to look at the member states of the European Union because the member states are what drives European Union policy and that's what's really important when decision-making, when it comes to decision-making and things operationally, the member states are vital and that's why it's great that the ambassadors are here for human rights that are here today because of the fact that they are representing EU member states. And let me just finish on some things to look out for in the next year. So we have at the end of our report some things that we think it's important to look out for. I'd highlight three of those, we have a few more. The first one is the way that trade-offs will be made in foreign policy. So with regards to energy, with regards to security, how important is democracy vis-a-vis these other priorities? Of course, these are also incredibly important and sometimes there are trade-offs that have to be made. For example, votes in the UN, how important are they vis-a-vis other issues that the EU might prioritise with regards to democracy? The second issue is what will happen with regards to accession? Will the process continue or will it get stalled again? We think that's very, very important for the credibility of the European Union, fundamentally, because if you go, I'm just back from Serbia and the Western Balkans, the EU is not talked about in very glowing terms there and also in other parts of the region, there's a distinct recognition of the fact that they've been stuck for a long time and this is partly the political issues, but it's also partly problems with regards to accession on the EU side, too. And finally, if you're doing a sort of SWOT analysis of the European Union, you think about the strengths and the weaknesses, we've spoken about them, I think they're linked in the report. We also speak a lot about the threats to democracy, how democracy is doing worldwide, but I think we also need to focus on some of the opportunities. So we released something that I wrote a couple of weeks ago that looks at some of the opportunities for democracy, where there are political openings. I think people will be surprised, there have been more than you would imagine in the last decade. We counted 42, where there's been a progress in terms of democracy in a specific country. Zambia is a very clear example and recent example where it's important for the EU and its member states to act quickly and to be there in order to support the countries. That's not necessarily with pro-democracy funding, it could be debt relief, it could be increased trade preferences, many different ways in which the European Union and its member states can support political openings that have a pro-democratic, that present pro-democratic opportunities. So I think I'll leave it there and look forward to the discussion. Thank you. Thank you, Ken, and also for raising those positive aspects and coming back to that, I think that's very important. So now I want to open the floor. It's been a long discussion, but I know there are questions and please take the opportunity to pose them to our excellent panel. Please direct it to one of the panelists if possible. We have one question there and we also have one human rights ambassador from Iceland in the front. Maybe I'll give you the floor first, Lina, and then the gentleman behind you. Okay, sorry. So my name is Elin Fligering and I'm a Human Rights and Democracy Ambassador at LARDS from Iceland. I would like to begin to congratulate idea and the sweetest presidency for this report, which I look very forward to read and I can see from the things that have been discussed today that it has a practical approach and being a Nordic person, I like that approach, of course. And again, being practical, I would like to mention more internal thing. I know this report is more about the external work, and of course, Iceland is outside EU, however inside Europe. And I would like to mention that we have in Europe many regional organizations working on democracy. Working on democracy. And I understand that EU is absolutely the largest and giving most money and work on democracy issues. However, if I may mention some like Council of Europe having as core values human rights, democracy and rule of law, of course, we have also OECE, not only European, but they have even one institution working for democracy and human rights. We have also the smaller regional ones as Council of Ministers. And this year, the priorities are to higher up democracy and combat fake news. And even, I can mention, even the Arctic Council is having democracy on their agenda for indigenous people. Now, when we think of this, there goes such a lot of energy and work and thinking and money on all this democracy work. How well are we organizing this between each other? This is maybe something that should be put a bit more emphasis on. And I would like to maybe, if possible, to get some ideas about this maybe from Miss Hautala who I know has been involved in some of these or other European people here. But also one more thing. Now we have the European political community. Also, that there is a bit of our lot face thinking about democracy and working on it. So aren't we overlapping each other? Thank you. Thank you for that question, Ambassador. Now the gentleman behind you, we will take a few questions and then come back to the panel for answer. Okay, thank you. Yeah, my name is Bald. I'm Ambassador to the EU from Mongolia. And I think maybe I am the only Asian here in the room, maybe because all the continents presented, but I'm not sure because yeah, I think I'm the only Asian. So I went on the Freedom House website and here you can see why I'm alone here. In the continental Asia, we have now only one Green Island or Greenspot. It's Mongolia. And thank you. And then of course we are democratic countries since 1990 when we had the democratic revolution. And it was always our question until now. Is democracy a religion? It spreads by itself. If you slap by one face, you have to give the other. Oh, it is democracy is like a revolution, like the communism. It is a revolution. It has to protect itself. It has this means. But today, they represent from the United States saying that democracy is infrastructure. Then what's today's address of democracy? If it's infrastructure, is it now more economy, more investment, more interrelations, more connectivity? Of course in the very ground, if I look at the history of Mongolia, yeah, it's not Mongolia is green because it is a foreign, dominance of foreign influence. Having two countries as a neighbor, you know how it's influencing. It is a real challenge. But it is really the real decision of Mongolian people to stick with democracy because they see is a way forward for our country. But today, I think the recent geopolitical events and all these, today's difficulties for every country, every continent is giving us a real good momentum. What we have to do, you know? It was, if you looked at last 30 years, when Mongolia opened up and we were allowed to have third neighbors, as we called our democratic partners, it was always lagging behind the economic operation because the Western companies took money and started, you know, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, when they arrived in Mongolia, there was nothing left, you know? So I think today, if I meet companies, they say different and they say, you were not in the first 100 priority countries, now you're in the first 10, you know? So it's really a very important global shift. And I think that's something we should also address and include, support this progress also, including in the reports, I don't know, in the recommendations of today's very important conference. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ambassador. We have one question over there. And then you. Thank you very much. I'm good at, I'm the Ambassador from Luxembourg. Thank you very much to all of you for that very interesting conversation. I just wanted to make a brief point about something we haven't been talking a lot this morning, this afternoon. It's education. Isn't education one tool, one very powerful tool, we can maybe invest even more or maybe a little bit better? I don't know, I don't know the topic so well, but I think everybody is concerned by it. And not only for our own people, but for our own kids, but kids from every social background, every country. And I think it's maybe a question to Madame van den Huyvel, something where we can think of if our education is still tailored to the young people now to the threats our democracy faces to social media, to, I think for me it's an obvious tool where we should invest even more to prepare our kids to have a critical thinking of what they are seeing. And then is where prepare them to get involved citizens to prepare to get into the discussion of our societies. Thank you very much. And one last question before we go back to the panel. Thank you very much indeed. I am Dallos Chakolas, Ambassador at large from Vilnius Lithuania. Well, actually Putin's provoked and brutal aggression against Ukraine was perhaps the loudest wake-up call in modern history, at least the Second World War. So everybody's awake, I think. And I agree with Ken that, of course, first of all politically, but it's good because first was word, and then as I hear today, there are interesting account what has already been done and what's in the future, and it leaves us with clear understanding that we are aware of the globalism of this actually confrontation. And this is not just backsliding of, we are not unilateral backsliding of democracy. I, you know, Putin has been preparing for 20 years. This aggression, they had constantly been increasingly provocative and rude, and we have, excuse me, the word slipped over the 2008 in Georgia. We have not sufficiently robustly reacted to, I guess, not a guess, I'm sure, to the annexation of Crimea. And now, yes, now we've come to the point and all this reaction. And here I have a little, you know, a small question. Of course, multilateralism is synonym to democracy, normal conditions by which I mean that you play along the rules, and here are the dictatorships that deliberately confront and try to disassemble that structure that has been built so meticulously step by step after the Second World War and that a lot, a lot of good things in our lives and in rebirth of Europe. But then again, you know, I was in the United, at the United Nations as Ambassador of Lithuania for seven years. Among other things, I had the opportunity to co-chair the group for so-called revitalization of the work of the General Assembly. Maybe you've heard about it. One year. Well, I must be frank, it was one of least, oh, okay, it was one of the most depressive kind of tasks to do. It was interesting. We've approached all, literally all member states and everybody's, you know, in favor of the process, but no one is in favor of any action and it's not the hunting season. So I'm asking probably now it is a hunting season to upgrade a little bit the structures that have history, that are, well, like, you know, okay, I'm not saying, you know, we have to close the United Nations or so, not at all. I'm a very big fan of multilateralism, but clearly in terms of security and, you know, war, delivery is a bit, you know, disappointing in security counsel, in OSCE and so on. So my hope and the idea, it's not no recipe is made yet, but I guess it's time, it's this hunting season, perhaps starts now to shoulder up some ideas, be more active to do something more about the even security counsel reform where we luckily have democratic majority and so on. So let us see. And, yeah, and so in my very last sentence, I'm sorry, you know, this is typically from Lithuania, so we are like, you know, Baltic Italians, you know. But then again, my last point would be that please, I guess we all have to be ready, take deep breath and be ready for a long, long action because even the military victory of Ukraine will not bring, you know, immediate kind of consolation that everything has been solved. It will only be start of a new problematic period, but will be optimist and do well. Thank you. So I have a number of questions that we have a few, few minutes to go. So the first one was how well are we organizing between different organizations? I direct that question to Ms. Hautala. And then we had the comment from the Mongolian ambassador. How can we support countries such as yourselves? As I understood it, maybe Dr. Lawrence, you would like to comment a bit more on that. We had the question from Luxembourg on education to Ms. Maria Monder-Herwell and then Lithuanian questions on multilateralism and reform of the Security Council. Maybe I could direct that both to you, Cecilia, Rustram Rien and also Kara McDonald. And Ken, if you want to add on any of these questions, please feel free, but should we start with you, Ms. Hautala? Yeah, yeah, thank you for this question on how we can organize better together the work for democracy. Well, I gave this example of supporting democratic forces in Myanmar, but another one could be that now we should all work towards this special tribunal on the Russian aggression against Ukraine. And the EU is very serious about this now. The EU Commission has just a couple of weeks ago announced that the EU will establish a kind of a prosecutor's office to sort of focus and coordinate the different sort of evidence collection and things like that. But there we also need the UN to support this, but basically it has to be a sort of coalition of like-minded countries. So I think this is something that could really, let's say, yeah, I'd like to be practical. There's many things that we need to do together, not just think together. By the way, I loved when your president, Mr. Ambassador from Mongolia, spoke to the European Parliament a few years back. He spoke about human rights and democracy and rule of law in a very, very convincing way. And then all of a sudden he said, oh, I lost my papers, but I will speak anyway. And it was the most delightful moment. So thank you for representing your country. So, but one more remark about this sort of Putin planned everything for 20 years. Yes, and the remark that has been made two or three times during this panel that governments that tremble on human rights and democracy at home, they are in the next day they will invade a country with aggression. I think it was Mrs. McDonald who started this. And it's really, really true. But why didn't we see what was happening like at least from 2012, when there was a systematic introducing of very repressive laws. And then we were resetting and we were like, yes, Putin is going the right way. It's anyway, it will sort out at the end. Why on earth? Why didn't we listen then the human rights defenders and civil society activists? Maybe some of you did, but certainly not all countries and governments. So I think there's a lesson that we have to learn. Who wants to go next, Dr. Lawrence? You really empathize with the ambassador. You know, you're in a rough neighborhood. We feel the shocks from 10,000 kilometers and you being in there is really, really tough. I think you are in the right place at the moment and I would encourage you to attend the summit for democracy, which the South Koreans will be hosting. They will probably have more solutions for you, but I really empathize with you. Thanks. Maria and Fander Herveld, you want to go next? Yes, thank you ambassador for your remarks on the importance of education for democracies. I think that democracies need continuously to be nourished. And as I said before, it's a critical infrastructure and one of the pillars of this infrastructure is education. And I believe that with the right education, we can really, let's say, ensure that young people become adults that do not take democracy for granted. And you cannot just think I will be driving on the automatic pilot and everything will be well. No, it's something that you have to cherish. It's a privilege, but you have also to be vigilant for anything that could be trying to undermine this democracy. And I would absolutely, I'm absolutely agreeing with you that all the EU member states, but also other governments should look at education and make sure that democracy is really well reflected as a basic foundation of our societies and governance. Thank you. Thank you. And Deputy Assistant Secretary, would you like to comment on any of these questions and multilateralism maybe specifically? Sure, no, thank you for the comments. I think we share many of the concerns about the active work being done by some countries to undermine the international order specifically within the United Nations, within the multilateral sphere. And we see this at every level from strategic to tactical as you outlined. I think my government believes that engagement does matter. And I think you've seen that backed by our actions, returning to the Human Rights Council so quickly, engaging there, working, I think, part of our agenda just at the tactical level, working hard to ensure that there are more rights respecting countries that run for membership, that are included on the Human Rights Council, that fewer rights-abusing countries are able to gain seats. But I think it's also a question of how we sharpen and strengthen the tools within the multilateral sphere and I would say also multistakeholder sphere. There are multistakeholder initiatives of like-minded countries that I think have become very important in this context. So I think of the Freedom Online Coalition. It's an organization that my government has taken the chair of this year to work on digital freedom issues, to ensure the same freedoms online that exist in the analog space, the Media Freedom Coalition. Some of these multistakeholder initiatives that have come up, it's also, I think, comes back to the comment that Merriam said about not one size fits all. And I think this goes to the Ambassador's comments from Mongolia as well, which is that it doesn't always, our president likes to say that this countering of authoritarianism is one of the challenges of our time, but that doesn't look the same in every context of the world. So here on this continent, it very clearly is a struggle between authoritaries of the future and democratic future. But in many contexts, it might look like a struggle against poverty. It might look like a struggle against economic coercion and indebtedness and the influence that comes from that. So I think having the multilateral bodies and tools that can respond in those various contexts is very, very important. And the last thing I'll say on this is I really appreciated the comment, Cecilia, your comment about evidence-based approaches to policy, because I think that is where some of the more cutting-edge work is being done in terms of developing those tools. I think, for example, of one of the cohorts within the Summit for Democracy that has begun to work with AccessNow and some organizations to actually describe what the economic cost is of an internet shutdown. What a great way to be able to argue with evidence-base for why those kinds of policies by a government approaches that we would say are authoritarian in their nature, but why those are harmful, why those are harmful to the economic prosperity to security stability, but based on specific evidence. So I know I've kind of wrapped a couple of different comments here together, but thank you for letting me take the floor again. Thanks. Thank you. We're running a little bit late now, but I will give the floor to Cecilia for some last comments, and then Ken, you will have the final word. Thank you, Moa, and I think you asked me to comment, perhaps, on the multilateral system. So let me just agree, of course, that the fact that the Security Council has not been able to function in the way it should is not acceptable. Nevertheless, this system, where we continue to see in the Security Council every week, meetings ways to ensure that there is no way that Russia can get away with this, that this is continuously delegitimized, called out, I think in itself is important, and the entire response in so many different ways where other parts of the system are stepping up. The General Assembly and the Human Rights Council have been referred. So building on what we have in this international world space framework is, as I see it, the most important task ahead of us, and in that context, let me just say accountability. I think that is absolutely key for what we have in front of us. If we can manage together to really ensure that impunity will not last, I think this will be a changing moment that will have a lasting impact. And we'll be very quick, I'll start between everybody and Kofi, just to say, maybe on the investment point, because it's been brought up a few times about the private sector. So I think that there's reasons that I'm optimistic and some that I'm pessimistic. On the optimistic side, if you saw with the Russian invasion, there were many companies that left Russia. Also, if you look at also the situation in Hungary, the bond markets have been placing quite a bit of pressure on the Hungarian government as a result of the rule of law mechanism of the European Union. It's been playing a significant role. At the same time, several of the press released reports that showed that many companies remain in Russia and continue with their investments, also in the Western Balkans, in China, et cetera. But I think that this will become a more important issue in the coming years, because I do feel as though it is something that we should recognize that investments are more safe, they're more secure in democracies. And therefore, it's important for investments to be made there. Thanks. Thank you so much. And thank you to all for contributing to this panel. I will now hand the floor back to Marilyn for some conclusions. Thank you very much, Moa. Excellent done. As always, there is a break, but please mind that it was foreseen for only being 15 minutes. May I propose that we do not wait too long with starting with the next panel and that people go out the room as you like, as there are perhaps people who would like to pay a visit to the wardrobe back or take a quick drink, do that, but don't go too far from your seats and let's try to make it back in a bit shorter than 15 minutes. Thank you.