Open letter to the German Gov­ern­ment and the Bun­destag: Russian warfare fulfils the central char­ac­ter­is­tics of geno­cide. Germany must fulfil its “Respon­si­bil­ity to Protect”.

The grant­ing of can­di­date status does not mean acces­sion: it is above all a recog­ni­tion of the progress Ukraine has made in reforms and a great sym­bolic gesture to a people who are...

EU research has shown that a cred­i­ble mem­ber­ship per­spec­tive is an effec­tive means of anchor­ing liberal democ­racy from the outside. That is why Ukraine must now be granted can­di­date status.

As part of our project “Eastern Part­ner­ship Plus” we publish a series of input papers on the topic: Per­spec­tives and Path­ways to EU Can­di­date Status for Ukraine, Georgia and the Republic...

As part of our project “Eastern Part­ner­ship Plus” we publish a series of input papers on the topic: Per­spec­tives and Path­ways to EU Can­di­date Status for Ukraine, Georgia and the Republic...

As part of our project “Eastern Part­ner­ship Plus” we publish a series of input papers on the topic: Per­spec­tives and Path­ways to EU Can­di­date Status for Ukraine, Georgia and the Republic...

On 31 May, we dis­cussed the future of the Russian economy after the war in Ukraine with Dr Vladislav Inozemt­sev, Angelina Davy­dova, Dr Janis Kluge and Michael Harms.

The Ukrain­ian TV channel “1plus1” broad­casted live on May 8th from Berlin. During the inter­view with Marieluise Beck one of the topics was the role of NATO in the war...

Hong Kong’s free society is being destroyed by China’s National Secu­rity Laws. With the elec­tion of John Lee as Chief Exec­u­tive, a night­mare has come true for Hong Kong’s democ­racy movement....

After the Bundestag’s deci­sion to supply heavy weapons to Ukraine, a con­tro­ver­sial debate has flared up about Germany’s atti­tude towards the Russian war of aggres­sion against Ukraine.  The sig­na­to­ries call on Chan­cel­lor Olaf Scholz and the German gov­ern­ment to ...

Just a day after the first videos of the Bucha mas­sacre were posted to social media, on 3 April 2022, Hungary’s FIDESZ-Chris­t­ian Demo­c­ra­tic alliance won its fourth con­sec­u­tive land­slide victory with 54,10%,...

Russia’s war of aggres­sion against Ukraine is a turning point for Europe and the whole world. What are its policy impli­ca­tions? Are the sanc­tions imposed so far suf­fi­cient to contain the...

So far, the people of Ukraine have borne the burden of the war all alone. For the German precept of “never again”, this is a reality shock, com­ments Marieluise Beck.

More than 80 schol­ars, politi­cians, busi­ness­peo­ple and civil society rep­re­sen­ta­tives have signed an appeal to the German gov­ern­ment to stop oil and gas imports from Russia. Remark­ably, the coali­tion of...

Russia’s inva­sion of Ukraine is reach­ing a per­ilous stage. The West needs to step up efforts to make Putin’s war unwinnable. Con­ces­sions will only prolong his regime and increase Moscow’s appetite...

Moldova, a country in the heart of Europe, its current lead­er­ship and first and fore­most its people, opened not only its borders but also their homes for the suf­fer­ing neigh­bours. The...

Mil­i­tary expert Gustav C. Gressel on the war in Ukraine: The outcome will depend in part on whether the West sup­plies Ukraine with the weapons it needs. It is also...

On 22 March, at 2 pm, the Center for Liberal Moder­nity in coop­er­a­tion with Naftogaz Ukraine and the Ukrain­ian Fed­er­a­tion of Employ­ers of the Oil and Gas Indus­try invites you to...

Based on six cri­te­ria of the United Nations Con­ven­tion against Geno­cide, Russia is com­mit­ting geno­cide in Mar­i­upol, says Inter­na­tional law expert Otto Luchterhandt.

By waging a war against Ukraine, Putin has badly mis­cal­cu­lated. The Russian leader has become victim of his own pro­pa­gan­dis­tic visions and failed to antic­i­pate the Western respo­nse, writes Vladislav Inozemtsev.

How should we deal with a repres­sive and con­fronta­tional Russia? Join our annual dis­cus­sion “Russia and the West” on 24 March, which will be held jointly with the Munich Secu­rity Conference...

We must stop funding Putin’s war with our energy imports

French elec­tion cam­paigns are usually des­per­ately navel-gazing. Foreign policy issues are all but absent from the debate. And even in ‘ordi­nary’ times, all main­stream evening news pro­grammes con­sider inter­na­tional news...

Polit­i­cal sci­en­tist Olek­san­dra Keudel warns of Euro­pean and global con­se­quences in the case of Russian attacks on Ukrain­ian nuclear power plants.

State­ment on the Russian inva­sion of Ukraine

Two promi­nent members of the Ukrain­ian par­lia­ment appeal to their col­leagues in the German Bun­destag to stand by Ukraine in the face of Russian threats of war.

After failing to agree on exclu­sive spheres of influ­ence in Europe with the Trump admin­is­tra­tion, the Kremlin is chal­leng­ing Washington’s ability to keep unity among Euro-Atlantic allies and protect European...

Finally: Here are the Insights and High­lights of our Inter­na­tional Con­fer­ence “Rethink­ing Lib­er­al­ism, Renew­ing Democracy”!

How should the West counter Russian threats of war? We doc­u­ment Ralf Fücks’ OP ED at DIE WELT, 21.12.2021.

This Wednes­day, the Eastern Part­ner­ship Summit will take place for the first time in four years. On this occa­sion, Iryna Solo­nenko, Senior Fellow at the Center for Liberal Moder­nity, sheds...

As 2021 draws to a close, we look back on this year’s impor­tant events. Among them is the Crimea Plat­form, which was launched in August at Ukraine’s ini­tia­tive to shore up...

The polit­i­cal crisis in Georgia con­tin­ues after the munic­i­pal runoff elec­tions. The close elec­tion result exac­er­bates the polar­iza­tion between the sup­port­ers of the ruling Geor­gian Dream party and the opposition...

On 22 October, the foun­da­tion stone for a new memo­r­ial to the 1941 mas­sacre was laid in Odesa. The future memo­r­ial is the result of an ini­tia­tive of the Centre for...

The con­sid­er­able break­throughs in the EU-Ukraine eco­nomic agenda have been harmed by slug­gish polit­i­cal devel­op­ment, par­tic­u­larly con­cern­ing the rule of law. The judi­cial reform, anti-cor­rup­­tion efforts, inde­pen­dent and effi­cient law-enforcement...

  On October 5, 2021, the Center Liberal Moder­nity held the public dis­cus­sion on pri­or­i­ties for coop­er­a­tion with Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova under the Eastern Part­ner­ship Plus project. The discussion...

Europe is suf­fer­ing from high gas prices. At some gas hubs, they increased more than 250% since January, and already have impact on the retail prices for house­holds in many...

In the LibMod Policy Paper: Assess­ment of progress in the fight against cor­rup­tion in the EU-asso­­ci­ated states of Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, our author Dr. Khatia Kikalishvili argues that insufficient...

When Angela Merkel took office as German Chan­cel­lor in 2005, she was better pre­pared for the chal­lenges on the EU’s eastern border than any other West Euro­pean head of government....

In the LibMod-Policy-Paper: Towards a Euro­pean Climate Diplo­macy, Dr. Georg Zach­mann analy­ses the exten­sion of the Euro­pean Green Deal to the three asso­ci­ated states of the EU (Ukraine, Georgia and the...

The reac­tions in Ukraine to Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­skyy recent visit to the United States vary widely and are often politi­cized. They range from state­ments that the visit lifted rela­tions to...

A year ago protests began against elec­toral fraud in Belarus. Dic­ta­tor Lukashenko responded with a wave of harsh state vio­lence, which led to the country being further iso­lated and sanc­tioned internationally....

The impact of the Biden-Merkel-Agree­­ment on Nord Stream 2 in Ukraine is simply dis­as­trous. Espe­cially among western ori­ented, reform-minded people trust in Germany and the US fell at a record low. China...

A com­men­tary by Ralf Fücks on Putin’s latest his­tor­i­cal policy man­i­festo, pub­lished by the Kremlin.

In this analy­ses Dmytro Shulga argues for the EU and specif­i­cally Germany to con­sider it’s own strate­gic gains in offer­ing Ukraine a way to full EU mem­ber­ship over an extended amount...

Dig­i­tal­iza­tion rep­re­sents one of the major chal­lenges of our time. Hence, it is crucial to obtain a pro­found under­stand­ing of the digital trans­for­ma­tion in order to be able to design and steer it.

An answer to Wladimir Putin’s fine tuned op-ed in the German weekly Die Zeit by Ralf Fücks, Center for Liberal Modernity.

State­ment by Ralf Fücks und Marieluise Beck: The Russian Pros­e­cu­tor General’s deci­sion to brand­mark the Center for Liberal Moder­nity together with the German-Russian Exchange (DRA) and a Russian exile orga­ni­za­tion as “unde­sir­able...

The recent visit of the US Sec­re­tary of State Antony Blinken to Kyiv has gen­er­ated some inter­est in Ukraine and beyond. This face-to-face meeting was a good oppor­tu­nity for the United...

Climate change and its con­se­quences are viewed dif­fer­ently in Russia than is the case in the West. The issue is under­stood as “part of a polit­i­cal game”. This dif­fer­ence in outlook has ram­i­fi­ca­tions for both polit­i­cal and eco­nomic coop­er­a­tion. The inter­view study “Russian Experts’ Opin­ions on Global Climate Change”, con­ducted by Russia’s Levada-Center and com­mis­sioned by the Center for Liberal Moder­nity, affords in-depth insight into the Russian elites’ per­spec­tive on climate change and its soci­etal and eco­nomic consequences.

The protests in Belarus in 2020 did not lead to a change in gov­ern­ment. But Lukashenko’s chosen way of brutal suppres­sion will not gain him any popular support — and is...

In late March 2021 Ukrain­ian Pres­i­dent Volodymyr Zelen­sky revoked a decree made by runaway pres­i­dent Viktor Yanukovych appoint­ing Olek­sandr Tupyt­sky and Olek­sandr Kas­minin to the Con­sti­tu­tional Court. This raised eye­brows in...

Since January 2021 there has been growing mil­i­tary esca­la­tion in con­flict-affected areas of Donbas. Russia has built up mil­i­tary equip­ment deploy­ment along the Russian-Ukrain­ian border, repo­si­tioned its army and strengthened...

Lukas Daubner argues that the liberal forces of all stripes should once again take a pos­i­tive view of the future.

Slo­va­kia is one of the coun­tries hardest hit by the pan­demic in Europe. After MP Matovic and several min­is­ters resigned, liberal oppo­si­tion politi­cian Michal Simecka demands a fast solu­tion to the...

The ana­lyt­i­cal paper “Invest­ment plans of the EU: oppor­tu­ni­ties for Ukraine in the area of the Euro­pean Green Deal imple­men­ta­tion” iden­ti­fies the most impor­tant spheres of involve­ment for the Ukrainian...

Anna Donath, MEP, com­ments on Orban’s FIDESZ Party leaving the Euro­pean People Party’s (EPP) faction in the Euro­pean Par­lia­ment and a new alliance of the Hun­gar­ian oppo­si­tion gainst the anti-euro­­pean Prime...

Armenia’s Prime Min­is­ter Nikol Pashinyan is facing protests and requests to resign after Armenia lost the war with Azer­bai­jan for Nagorno Karabakh. Richard Giragosian, Direc­tor of the inde­pen­dent Think­tanks Regional...

Only tem­porar­ily, says Michael Zürn, Direc­tor at the Berlin Social Science Center. 

Only tem­porar­ily, says Michael Zürn, Direc­tor at the Berlin Social Science Center. 

While vio­lence thrives in silence, it has no chance to persist if brought to public atten­tion. Inter­na­tional atten­tion and support to the people in Belarus are now more crucial than...

The Roadmap „Towards Climate-Neutral Avi­a­tion“ by Ralf Fücks (Zentrum Libe­rale Moderne), Mat­thias von Randow (Chief Exe­cu­tive of the BDL) and Volker Thum (Chief Exe­cu­tive of the BDLI) sum­ma­ri­zes the results...

A four-month stand-off between Belaru­sian strong­man Alexan­der Lukashenko and the pro-demo­c­ra­tic pro­test­ers posed a serious chal­lenge for the EU. The block that had announced its ambi­tion to become a geopo­lit­i­cal actor, has...

Liberal democ­racy has come under pres­sure from various quar­ters: from the outside by author­i­tar­ian regimes, from within by pop­ulist move­ments and parties. In this dossier, we want to combine ideas of a new liberalism.

Online-Panel Dis­cus­sion on October 6, 2020, with Gunther Krich­baum, Johannes Schraps, Renata Alt, Manuel Sar­razin und others.

Lessons learned from Covid-19: Ralf Fuecks dis­cusses with Anthony Giddens

In Germany, a major­ity favour closer ties with Russia despite new autho­ri­an­ism under Putin, mil­i­tary aggres­sion against Ukraine and bombing in Syria. Where does the desire for a special rela­tion­ship with Russia...

Panel and online dis­cus­sion with Marie­luise Beck, Vla­di­mir Kara-Murza und Michael McFaul on 9 Sep­tem­ber 2020, 7 pm CET

Ahead to the Past – The World in the Mind of Putin Эту статью можно читать и на русском

The paper ‘From status quo to status reform: Account­able Gov­er­nance in Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova’ argues that greater pri­or­ity should be attached to the rule of law and demo­c­ra­tic governance...

With its “Eastern Part­ner­ship 2.0” project, LibMod is bring­ing per­spec­tives from Georgia, Moldova and the Ukraine to Berlin’s and Brus­sels’ policy circles.

Tra­di­tional oppo­si­tion parties and move­ments has long seized to be a polit­i­cally mean­ing­ful force in Belarus. It is time for Western deci­­sion-makers to finally admit this unpleas­ant reality and shift its...

In the LibMod policy paper: “The Eastern Partnership’s Missing Secu­rity Dimen­sion” Gustav C. Gressel analy­ses the pre­car­i­ous secu­rity sit­u­a­tion in the three EU asso­ciate coun­tries and sheds light on EU...

Ukraine is under­go­ing pro­found trans­for­ma­tion. One click will take you to the website www.ukraineverstehen.de, where you will find infor­ma­tion, analy­ses and reports on the latest devel­op­ments in the country. With a dedicated...

The Russian Gov­ern­ment is trying to get access to the inter­net – perhaps the most impor­tant refuge for freedom of speech. Cyber­space is increas­ingly restricted through state cen­sor­ship: state pressure...

This aim of LibMod’s “Liberal Democ­racy and Its Adver­saries” project is to examine the “long lines” of antilib­eral thought and discuss its rel­e­vance for the debate of today. The project’s...

An inter­view with Dr. Ulana Suprun, former acting min­is­ter of Health of Ukraine (2016–2019) on the government’s response to COVID-19, includ­ing an erratic com­mu­ni­ca­tion strat­egy, a lack of trans­parency and corruption...

Eco-inno­­va­­tions, eco­nomic oppor­tu­ni­ties and social par­tic­i­pa­tion in times of climate change are the sub­jects of this book, edited by Ralf Fücks and Thomas Köhler, in which widely acclaimed authors discuss...

An Open Letter to the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of the Council of Europe: Please don’t deprive your­self of the right to impose sanc­tions on member states that are vio­lat­ing the statutes...

An intro­duc­tion to our report and a summary of our results.

Fly less! Eat less meat! In the strug­gle against climate change, there is one thing in par­tic­u­lar we should do: mod­er­ate our lifestyles. Indi­vid­ual respon­si­bil­ity def­i­nitely matters. Will renun­ci­a­tion and...

On this date 74 years ago, the Red Army lib­er­ated the Auschwitz-Birke­­nau exter­mi­na­tion camp. The 27th of January became the Day of Remem­brance for the Victims of National Social­ism. Much has...

On January 17 the Centre for Liberal Moder­nity held its second inter­na­tional Russia con­fer­ence. This year’s topic was if Germany’s policy of detente of the 1970s can offer any guidance...

The book dis­cussed below (Why we need peace and freedom with Russia) explic­itly presents itself as an appeal for a change in Germany’s policy towards Russia. It brings together authors from...

For decades, Sinol­o­gists who were largely blind to China’s expan­sive power pol­i­tics have dom­i­nated Germany’s polit­i­cal advice circles, cul­ti­vat­ing an image of China that our author calls “Late Ori­en­tal­ism”. Shaped...

Over the last 200 years, Lib­er­al­ism has been a stun­ning success story. It brought forward liberty and pros­per­ity for the many instead of priv­i­leges for the few. Yet, today liberal think­ing and...

A summary of the elec­tions in Bavaria, one of the major German states with more then 9 million voters.

With the annex­a­tion of Crimea and the unde­clared war in Eastern Ukraine, the Russian lead­er­ship gravely vio­lates the prin­ci­ples of the Euro­pean peace order. In response, the Par­lia­men­tary Assem­bly of...

Sandra Detzer und Sebas­t­ian Schaf­fer of the German Greens travel to Sweden where the right-wing-pop­ulist “Sweden Democ­rats” could win the elec­tion in Sep­tem­ber. But where danger is, rescue also grows:...

What will be at stake when Moscow and Beijing begin to share their lessons?

Are Russia’s inter­ven­tions in Georgia, Ukraine and Syria merely a reac­tion against the expan­sion of NATO? Facts and argu­ments con­cern­ing a pro­pa­ganda myth.

The elec­tions on April 8, 2018 gave Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz party another two-thirds major­ity in par­lia­ment. Attila Juhasz explains why this does not imply a broad support for the concept of ‘illib­erale democ­racy’. The hungarian...

Society is caught up in a whirl­wind of change. The power of liberal democ­ra­cies is dwin­dling and the polit­i­cal balance in the world is shift­ing. An inter­view with Ralf Fücks on...

The anti-liberal revolt ist not limited to the US and Europe. Ten­den­cies towards an ‘illib­eral democ­racy’ and ethnic nation­al­ism can be observed in Israel as well. The Israeli author Dahlia...

On March 13 the Center Liberal Moder­nity held its first inter­na­tional con­fer­ence on Russia. The event’s main inten­tion was gaining a deeper under­stand­ing of the Putin System and to find out...

A Russian agent who switched sides is attacked with a mil­i­­tary-grade nerve agent in a provin­cial English town. Prime Min­is­ter May holds Moscow respon­si­ble for the attack. Are we back in the...

During the elec­tion cam­paign, appeal­ing to people’s anger and demo­niz­ing the oppo­nents is the most common strat­egy. Polit­i­cal pro­grams hardly matter. The polit­i­cal land­scape is highly frag­mented. In elec­tion polls,...

Reca­pit­u­la­tion of a fal­ter­ing peace process: the second Minsk Agree­ment of Feb­ru­ary 2015, intended to put an end to the war in eastern Ukraine and to set a polit­i­cal process in motion,...

In the coali­tion agree­ment, the CDU and the SPD dodge impor­tant reforms and take a scat­ter­shot approach to the dis­tri­b­u­tion of a great deal of money. The big chal­lenges, like climate, demographic...

The five AfD Members of the Bun­destag from Saxony are among the most radical in the party’s (Alter­na­tive for Germany) par­lia­men­tary group. At a party event near Pirna, the party base...

Karen Horn reminds us of for­got­ten, pio­neer­ing thinkers on liberty and high­lights the nec­es­sary con­tra­dic­tion within which a modern lib­er­al­ism exists: the tension between lim­it­ing state influ­ence and rec­og­niz­ing that influence...

The rapid devel­op­ment of wind and solar energy alone will not put an end to climate change. Green­house gas emis­sions con­tinue to rise around the world. Even Germany has not...

The EU as we knew it does not exist anymore. This is Ivan Krastev’s point of depar­ture. The opti­mistic belief in the idea of progress that was widely held during...

There can be no liberal moder­nity without social justice, which is why nothing can surpass the social demo­c­ra­tic idea, which has been mar­gin­al­ized in the current SPD. Anyone, who is...

The rapid pace of mod­erni­sa­tion renders people sus­cep­ti­ble to pop­ulism. In cos­mopoli­tan milieus, this came as a sur­prise. Yet the warning signs had long been apparent.

About the motives for found­ing a Center for Liberal Modernity.