Potsdam, September 9, 2015. On September 17, Potsdam will once again be a centre for high-quality discourse between the media, academic, and policy worlds. For the 11th time, this year against the background of the 70th anniversary of the Potsdam Agreement, the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium will bring together international representatives from the media, policy, and academic communities in Potsdam to discuss prospects for a free, democratic Europe in an increasingly chaotic world order.
In a statement ahead of the conference, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, one of the event’s main speakers, emphasised Germany’s responsibility in maintaining and further developing the international order.
“Seventy years ago, the victorious powers made decisions here in Potsdam that were of sweeping consequence for the new order in Germany and Europe after the Second World War. Today in Europe we face an organisational task of no less importance. Whether in Ukraine or the refugee crisis – under very different circumstances than in 1945, we too must today bring order to a world out of joint. One thing has fundamentally changed in this respect: At the Potsdam Conference. Germany was the subject of the crisis democracy. Today, we Germans, together with our partners, have taken responsibility.”
Steinmeier’s speech will also introduce the presentation of the M100 Media Award to French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in the Sanssouci Orangery. The award will be accepted by the magazine’s chief editor, Gérard Biard, while a speech honouring Charlie Hebdo will be given by writer and defence attorney Ferdinand von Schirach. As a condition of high security will be in effect, all those wishing to attend or report on the event must register in advance.
The conference itself will be opened by former Foreign Minister and Vice Chancellor Hans-Dietrich Genscher, who made a significant contribution to the shape of today’s Europe during his term at the head of the German Federal Foreign Office.
The participants of this year’s conference, who will debate in three sessions in the Orangery of Sanssouci, include Klaus Brinkbäumer (Der Spiegel, Hamburg), Stephan-Andreas Casdorff (Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin), Ulrich Deppendorf (former director ARD capital Berlin studio, Berlin), Anna Diamantopoulou (“DIKTIO” – Network for Reform in Greece and Europe, Athens), Dr. Alexandra Föderl-Schmid (Der Standard, Vienna), Kai Diekmann ( BILD Group, Berlin), Sven Gösmann (dpa, Berlin), Dr. Ulrike Guérot (European Democracy Lab, Berlin), Pavel Gusev (Moskowskij Komsomolez, Moskow), Hans-Jürgen Jakobs (Handelsblatt, Dusseldorf), Matthew Kaminski (Politico, Brussels), Martin Kotthaus (German Foreign Ministry, Berlin), Anne McElvoy (The Economist, London), Merit Kopli (Postimees, Tallin), Richard Martyn-Hemphill (The Baltic Times, Latvia), Mathias Müller von Blumencron (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Frankfurt), Nenad Pejic (radio Free Europe, Prague), Prof. Dr. Andreas Rödder (Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz), Andrea Seibel (Die WeltN24, Berlin), Dr. Jamie Shea (NATO, Brussels), George N. Tzogopoulos (analyst, journalist, author, Athens), and Christopher Walker (National Endowment for Democracy, Washington).
The M100 gathering will flow naturally into the Alfred Herrhausen Gesellschaft’s and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung’s “Denk ich an Deutschland” (Thinking of Germany) conference in Berlin. This will take place the following day under the title, “The World out of Joint”, and is also being organised with explicit reference to the 70th anniversary of the Potsdam Agreement.
