The Baku Global Forum under the motto “The World after COVID-19” was launched in capital under the auspices of President Ilham Aliyev and organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center, a partner of the Boston Global Forum.
As a non-governmental organization, the center brings together former heads of state and government, as well as influential international experts from global. It is the main organizer of the Global Baku Forum, held annually in Baku since 2013. Baku has hosted seven global forums and 42 summits since 2013.
The VIII Global Baku Forum, November 4-6, 2021, attracts great attention and interest of world leaders. At the opening ceremony, addresses were heard from Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson, Latvian President Egils Levits, Moldovan Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita, Pope Francis, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, former UK Prime Minister, UN Special Envoy for Global Education and World Health Organization, Ambassador for Global Health Gordon Brown and other dignitaries.
The EU was a visionary creation that managed to transform the relations between deadly antagonists into peaceful partners, e.g. France and Germany. It expanded the fruitful collaborations among its members, and increased its membership enhancing peace and prosperity across the continent.
However, it was not able to become a single federal state, an ambition that was largely abandoned when the citizens of France and the Netherlands (two of the original six founders of the EEC) rejected a 20 proposed European Constitution that had been drafted by a committee headed by former French president Valery Giscard-d’Estaing. But despite successes in various areas, (e.g. common market, human rights, the euro, the unification of Germany) and the eastward advances after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it still had difficulties in defining a common foreign policy and a common defense posture (independent of NATO). Yet the EU was seen everywhere as a force for peace, prosperity, democracy and human rights. But lately, it has been having problems with the rise of what has been termed by some as “illiberal democracies”, democracies in name only where repetitive elections simply serve to ratify the ruling regime.
Among the questions that could be addressed by this panel:
- Can the EU design a unified foreign and defense posture vis-a-vis the rapidly changing world order?
- Can the European parliament become a viable forum for formulating policies that would be binding
on all the member countries?
- Can the EU design policies that would resolve favorably the current crises that exist in Europe: e.g.
South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Ukraine and Crimea? Or to define policies on such non-consensual issues
as immigration?
- Can the EU manage the issues raised by the policies of some of its member states, e.g. Hungary
under Viktor Urban?
- Can the EU resolve the remaining issues of the BREXIT decisions?
- How will the EU define it relations with Russia post- Crimea?
Moderator:
– Vaira Vike-Freiberga, President of Latvia 1999-2007; Co-Chair, NGIC (TBC)
Speakers:
– Kolinda Grabar-Kitarovic, President of Croatia 2015-2020
– Yves Leterme, Prime Minister of Belgium 2008, 2009-2011
– Matteo Renzi, Prime Minister of Italy 2014-2016 (Digital Speaker)
– Emil Constantinescu, President of Romania 1996-2000
– Nguyen Anh Tuan, Co-Founder and CEO, Boston Global Forum
View this panel at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3E5asL2nqg&t=4021s
