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President Ilves to embark on a working visit to Latvia and Poland

04.06.2014

President Toomas Hendrik Ilves will tonight deliver an Isaiah Berlin memorial lecture dedicated to democratic values at the annual conference dedicated to philosopher Isaiah Berlin in Riga. From there, the Head of State will continue to Wroclaw, Poland, to accept the Atlantic Council's Freedom Award and be one of the keynote speakers at the high-level Wroclaw Global Forum, which brings together top-level politicians from Europe and will focus on Trans-Atlantic relationships.

The President's Isaiah Berlin memorial lecture will be introduced by the patron of the conference, Vaira Vike-Freiberga, who was the President of Latvia from 1999–2007. The conference will focus on the surveillance of people and personal liberty. More than 400 people, including diplomats, lecturers and scientists, lawyers, businessmen, will be present at President Ilves's lecture.

At the Wroclaw Global Forum in Poland, the focus this year is on defending democracy and security in Central Europe; special emphasis will be given to the future of Ukraine and economic relations as well as security co-operation between Europe and the USA.

The Wroclaw Global Forum commemorates the falling of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of communist regimes in Eastern Europe 25 years ago, NATO's enlargement eastwards 15 years ago and the European Union enlargement 10 years ago. The key events that connect Europe and our common democratic values together with the importance of Trans-Atlantic co-operation will also be the focus of the address given by the Estonian Head of State.

Within the framework of Wroclaw Global Forum, President Ilves will be awarded the Atlantic Council's Freedom Award in recognition of his role in standing up for democratic values in Europe, protecting persona liberties and promoting European-US relationships.

The Freedom Award will also be given to the European Union's Foreign Policy leader, Catherine Ashton (High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy), former prime minister of Hungary Miklos Nemeth and Polish diplomat Jerzy Kozminski; the award will be accepted on behalf of the Maidan freedom fighters by the Mayor of Kiev, Vitali Klitschko, and Ukrainians Ruslana and Igor Lutsenko.

Office of the President
Public Relations Department
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