The defence of freedom, leading topic of Think Tank Central 23

The third edition of New Direction’s Think Tank Central was held on 21 and 22 September at our premises in Madrid. During these two days, different speakers gave answers to the enormous changes in European and global politics that are taking place. Under the title “Advancing Freedom Conference”, different voices in favour of freedom have been brought together and issues such as the management of the economy or educational freedom have been debated.

During the conference, speakers included the president of New Direction, Tomasz Poręba MEP; the president of the Austrian Economic Center, Barbara Kölm; the director of CEU-CEFAS, Elio A. Gallego; the co-founder and director of the Adam Smith Institute, Eamonn Butler; the international executive director of the Acton Institute, Alejandro Chafuen; and the UK president of the Edmund Burke Foundation, James Orr.

During the “Margaret Thatcher Dinner”, held at the Casino de Madrid, the vice-president of the ECR Group and member of New Direction, Hermann Tertsch, and Margaret Thatcher’s advisor and vice-president of COK, Robin Harris, also took part.

Our focus: freedom

The congress ended with a speech by Jorge Soley, Head of International Relations at CEU-CEFAS, who stressed that this meeting has served to show that we can agree on many issues and act as a movement. Moreover, Soley assured that “if we want to be relevant and win elections, we must not abandon our focus on freedom”.

The head of International Relations at CEU-CEFAS also pointed out that “we must make political ideas attractive” and, with the European Parliament elections approaching, he stressed the importance of conveying to citizens that “what happens in Europe is important”.

The President of the Austrian Economic Center, Barbara Kölm, also spoke, stressing the need to return to basic principles and the need to “re-democratise Europe”. For his part, the Executive Director of New Direction, Witold d’Humilly de Chevilly, highlighted the variety of issues dealt with during the congress and the need to be together to continue debating.

The closing speech was given by the diplomat and former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Ernesto Fraga Araújo. During his speech, he stressed the importance of naming things in order to perpetuate them: “things are losing their names, and forgetting names is part of man’s abandonment“, he stated. Furthermore, Araújo was critical of the current context and assured that “we are losing the war because we think that global problems have global solutions and this is not the case”.