First Reunion of Munich Young Leaders, 11-13 June 2010

The Munich Young Leaders 2009 and Munich Young Leaders 2010, who come from Ankara, Belgrade, Kyiv, Kuwait City, London, Moscow, Rabat, Tel Aviv and a number of other cities, attended the First Reunion of the Munich Young Leaders in Berlin between 11-13 June 2010.

The Reunion began with a stately dinner at the residence of the Moroccan Ambassador, H.E. Mohammad Rachad Bouhlal. The 30 Munich Young Leaders were officially greeted by Ambassador Bouhlal and Dr. Thomas Paulsen, Executive Director International Affairs of the Körber Foundation. Dr. Christoph Heusgen, Foreign Policy and Security Advisor to the Federal Chancellor, then gave a dinner speech on the subject of “The Politics of Climate Change: Lessons Learned from Copenhagen.” In this he described his impressions of the Copenhagen climate summit in December 2009, and talked to the attendees about the possible foreign and security policy implications of climate change. He also gave a foretaste of the next climate summit in Cancún.

The schedule on Saturday started with a panel discussion on the subject of “Decline of the West and Rise of the Rest? Towards a New Global Order.”

Sven Mikser, Member of the Parliament of Estonia and Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Hayfa Matar, advisor to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Bahrain, talked about “Western Values in a Post-Western World: Is the West still a Model?”.
Sven Mikser reiterated his view that Western values, in particular democracy, the rule of law and individual freedom, still constituted a model worthy of emulation. Hayfa Matar pointed out that the West itself did not always adhere to its own values. Thus, especially when it came to the topic of “human rights,” it was often guilty of applying double standards. Such double standards were bitterly criticized in the non-Western world, and not infrequently led to an outright rejection of Western values. The ensuing discussion focused primarily on the difficulty of actually identifying and applying universal values.

In the second session the statements presented by Ambassador Nasser Bourita, director general of multilateral relations and global cooperation in charge of the Minister’s Cabinet in the Moroccan Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Dr. Olaf Osica, research fellow at the Natolin European Center in Warsaw, were devoted to the question “Should the Role of the UN in International Relations Be Strengthened?”
Nasser Bourita emphasized what the United Nations had achieved in the past, and against this background suggested that the UN should begin to play a greater role. In contrast to this, Olaf Osica argued that the UN primarily had a legitimacy problem, and in the final analysis was no more than a vehicle for the implementation of the interests of the states in the Security Council. This led him to deduce that the international community should concentrate more on regional integration entities such as the EU. The participants then talked about the question of how the UN might perhaps be reformed in order to enhance its legitimacy.

The third session was devoted to the question “Is Global Zero Realistic?” Two opposing views were given by Jan Hamáček, a Member of the Czech Parliament, and Dr. Ronen Bergman, senior security and intelligence correspondent and analyst of “Yedioth Ahronot” in Tel Aviv.
Jan Hamáček spoke out in favour of a global nuclear disarmament strategy. Nuclear weapons were a product of the Cold War and thus belonged to the past. It was now time, Hamáček said, to ensure genuine stability in international relations by adopting a policy of comprehensive nuclear disarmament. In contrast to this, Ronen Bergman doubted whether the chances of Global Zero were actually realistic. Many states were not prepared to relinquish nuclear weapons, since these demonstrated their international status, their power and their ability to deter potential aggressors. The ensuing discussion also examined the idea that the existence of nuclear weapons actually created more stability because it reduced the threat of conventional war.

In the afternoon the participants visited the Joint Counter-Terrorism Centre (GTAZ) in Berlin, where the participants were given a detailed briefing about the work of the centre.

On Sunday morning Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, chairman of the Munich Security Conference, talked to the Reunion participants about the prospects and the future role of the Munich Security Conference in the foreign and security policy discourse. The discussion concentrated above all on relations between NATO and Russia, but also went on to consider the implications of the euro crisis.

After a boat trip on the river Spree and a conducted tour through the Neue Museum, the Reunion ended with an informal lunch.

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