Agenda

Registration

Welcoming of Guests

Keynote Address

Péter Szijjártó, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Hungary

Sovereignty and Contestation: Has the Globe Finally Fractured?

Opening Plenary Panel Discussion
 
A decade of geopolitical flux has reconfigured the old order, but the contours of a new are yet to emerge. Great-power competition – particularly between the United States and China – now affects not just security, but also economic relations, technological choices and energy access. Smaller nations seek to reclaim their sovereignty and autonomy, supra-national institutions are in retreat, and emerging powers are claiming their seat at the table. This panel will examine how multilateralism is being reconfigured, how security is being redefined, and whether an institutional basis for peace and co-operation can be found.

• Can the old multilateral order be reformed and restored, or must it be replaced? What groupings, alliances, and relationship could potentially act on global problems with both consensus and credibility?  
• Has the US retreated from its role as underwriter of the global system, or is it merely reconfiguring its relationships? Can other powers – Europe, India, and Japan – possess the will and capability to pick up some of the slack?  
• How can smaller nations recover room to both fulfil their growth aspirations and expand their sovereign autonomy? Will the “spheres of influence” doctrine return in a more multipolar world? 

Speakers
  
Dhruva Jaishankar, Executive Director, Observer Research Foundation America, United States of America

Gladden Pappin, President, Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, Hungary

Thomas Greminger, Executive Director, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, Switzerland

Velina Tchakarova, Geopolitical Strategist and Founder of FACE- For A Conscious Experience, Austria

Ivan Krastev, Chairman of the Center for Liberal Strategies; Albert Hirschman Permanent Fellow of the Institute for Human Sciences, IWM Vienna, Bulgaria

Moderator

Márton Ugrósdy, Deputy State Secretary, Office of the Prime Minister’s Political Director, Hungary

Keynote address

Stefan Andonovski, Minister of Digital Transformation, North Macedonia

From Tech Utopia to Tech Polarity: The Race to Own the Century

Technological competition has become the arms race of the 21st century. Advancements in artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, cyber warfare, space systems and autonomous weapons are a major toolkit for gaining and maintaining dominance and ensuring national resilience. Leading global actors and rising tech powers are racing to secure digital dominance and strategic advantage. This panel will examine the fragmenting of the tech world, and discuss if growth and sovereignty are fated to be at odds in this domain.

• Will tech sovereignty exist in the coming decades, or will new blocs emerge that constrain and confine investment and innovation? What prospects do small states have amid dramatic global competition?
• In a multi-polar, multi-cultural world, what values and assumptions will define how the tech space is governed? What additional groups – companies, financiers – will compete with governments to affect this space?  
• Will countries seek out hedging strategies in a polarised tech landscape, and can such efforts be successful? How can the essential interconnectedness of tech innovation survive geopolitical contestation?  

Speakers
 
Stefan Andonovski, Minister of Digital Transformation, North Macedonia

Juan E. Battaleme Martinez, Former Secretary for International defense affairs, Ministry of Defense, Argentina
 
Angeliki Dedopoulou, Public Affairs Director, V&O Group, Greece

Muhammad Faizal Bin Abdul Rahman, Research Fellow, RSIS Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, Singapore

Moderator

Trisha Ray, Associate Director and Resident Fellow, GeoTech Center, Atlantic Council, United States of America

Keynote Address

Maka Botchorishvili, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Georgia

Peacemakers and Peacekeepers: In Search of a Keystone for Global Security

The erosion of post–Cold War structures, the rise of new regional powers and the return of great power rivalry have created a volatile security environment. The war in Ukraine has reshaped Europe’s calculus, exposing the limits of existing deterrence frameworks, while triggering NATO’s largest transformation since the Cold War. Meanwhile, the United States has begun a reshuffle of its priorities in global security maintenance, but potential conflicts in the Middle East and South China Sea threaten to draw it back in. This panel will identify what West and global South view as prerequisites for a restored sense of shared security.

• Was the resurgence of frozen conflicts across the world inevitable, or a byproduct of moribund multilateralism? What new and dynamic groupings and alliances might serve to create and impose peace instead?
• Can deterrence and respect for sovereignty be re-established, or do we live in a world without accountability? What grand strategy can middle powers adopt to preserve their sovereignty?
• What are the new priorities for old actors, like the United States, and what fresh requirements and capabilities do new actors, such as India, bring to the table?

Speakers
 
Jennifer Kavanagh, Director of Military Analysis, Defense Priorities, United States of America

Alexandre del Valle, Full Professor at IPAG, France

Edward Luttwak, Contractual Strategic Advisor to the US Department of Defense, United States of America

Elie Pieprz, Director of International Relations, Israel Defense and Security Forum, Israel

Moderator

Tamás Baranyi, PhD, Director for Strategy & Board member, Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, Hungary

Black Gold Blackmail: The Revenge of Energy Geopolitics

Major disruptions have unfolded in global energy security during the last year, as the globe’s actors have found that states cannot be easily pushed into giving up their own energy interests. While the war in Ukraine has revealed European energy dependency, diversification is easier said than done. The developing world resists any imposition of energy poverty, while the transition to new energy is threatened by China’s strategic dominance of critical raw materials. This panel will examine the 21st-century energy race, and identify what it will take to win.

• The energy supply chain of the 20th century was built by companies and countries that took risks and financed exploration. Who will do so in the 21st?   
• Can energy security be insulated from geopolitical competition, or will it inevitably be shaped by old conflicts and new alliances? What can smaller nations do to ensure their access to energy is not interrupted?   
• How will plurilateral groupings, global finance, and security strategies be reconfigured to incorporate the need to access critical minerals and processing technologies?  
   

Speakers

Carlos Roa, Director of the Keystone Initiative, Danube Institute, Hungary

Dávid Kőhegyi, Partner&Head of Compliance and Investigations, DLA Piper Hungary, Hungary

Ornela Çuçi, Head of Research Center, Western Balkan University, Albania

Tian Huifang, Research Director, China-CEE Institute, Hungary

Moderator

Stefan Antić, Visiting Fellow, Hungarian Institute of International Affairs; Managing Editor, Horizons, Hungary

Remote Keynote Address

Graham Allison, Professor of Government, Harvard Kennedy School; Former Dean of the Kennedy School, United States of America

The Great Reset: Rebuilding the Global Economy

The assumptions that underlay the past decades of global economic expansion are being challenged. Nations demand fairer trade, resilient supply chains, and higher living standards. The Global South’s rise appears irresistible, and Europe’s decline equally irreversible. Some nations seek to protect their manufacturing and technological advantages, while others work to reshore investment and jobs. This panel aims to explore whether a complete reset of the global economy is indispensable—and if so, how it might be undertaken.

• Is the era of free trade over, or are tariffs and trade restrictions only a temporary tool for correcting global imbalances that had grown out of control? 
• Will financial and investment networks continue to be exempted from this reset and rebalancing, or is the expansion of state action into this domain inevitable? Are nations already weaponising the channels of global finance?  
• What would a fairer global economic system look like, and how do the perspectives of West and East, North and South, differ on this final outcome? Can common ground be found?  

Speakers
 
Andrew Peek, Former Senior Director for European and Russian Affairs at the NSC, United States of America

Sujan R. Chinoy, Director General, Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, India

László György, Government Commissioner for Economic Strategies and the Teach for Hungary Programme, Hungary

Moderator

Dorina Molnár, Managing Director, Hungarian Institute of International Affairs, Hungary