GLOBSEC forum will host guests from 70 countries

The 12th year of the conference will be attended by the highest number of participants in its history.

Illustrative stock photoIllustrative stock photo (Source: Sme)

Some 1,300 guests from 70 countries are set to attend the 12th GLOBSEC 2017 international security forum that begins in Bratislava on May 26. The main topic of the conference is ‘Adapting (to) the Future’, the TASR newswire reported.

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GLOBSEC 2017 international security forum will host the largest number of participants in the history of the event, the conference’s president Robert Vass told journalists at a press conference in Bratislava on May 23. Between 40-60 percent of the participants will be women, he added.

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As many as 12 foreign affairs ministers are scheduled to attend the conference, including Turkey’s Foreign Affairs Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. Among the other prominent guests at the event will be NATO Deputy Secretary-General Rose Gottemoeller, European Council President Donald Tusk, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, advisors to US President Donald Trump and representative of Russia’s State Duma Vyacheslav Nikonov.

“We can see that the change in the international environment as well as the technological changes that are emerging are really exponential, and our western institutions are often unable to adapt [to them] with the same dynamism,” Vass said, as quoted by TASR. “The scissors are opening and various problems are emerging. And this is the key topic of the conference – to define the main trends.”

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The forum does not only focus on security issues any more, as it has shifted in a more strategic direction, Vass added.

Read also: Vass: The atmosphere now is like in the 1930s but worse Read more 

This year’s conference is divided into four main areas – the fourth industrial revolution, global changes and trends, the future of the West and Western institutions and globalisation versus protectionism.

The world as such is dynamically changing at the moment, said GLOBSEC honorary chairman and Slovak Ambassador to Hungary Rastislav Káčer.

“I think that we can all feel that the world is becoming too fast and complex,” Káčer said, as quoted by TASR. “We can observe a rise in extremism that offers easy solutions.”

The GLOBSEC conference is trying to create scope for a professional discussion based on values, he added. Moreover, Káčer is convinced democracy is the best framework for the free world.

The conference will be opened on May 26 by Slovak Foreign and European Affairs Minister Miroslav Lajčák (Smer nominee), Slovak President Andrej Kiska and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda.

It will run until May 28, with closing speeches delivered by Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico (Smer), his Czech counterpart Bohuslav Sobotka and Tusk.

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