Hamburg-Vigoni Forum with the Latvian president“Europe will be as Europe should be.”

3 May 2023, by Claudia Sewig

Photo: Claudia Höhne

The Latvian president and alumnus of Universität Hamburg, Egils Levits, held the first Hamburg Address on the Future of Europe.

Photo: Claudia Höhne

Prof. Dr. Markus Kotzur (left) and University president Prof. Dr. Hauke Heekeren (center) also welcomed the Ukrainian ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, Oleksii Makeiev.

Photo: Claudia Höhne

The event, attended by 200 guests, took place in the atrium of the State and University Library Carl von Ossietzky.

Photo: Claudia Höhne

Panel participants included (from left): Ivo Belet, Oleksii Makeiev, Almut Möller, and Egils Levits with Prof. Dr. Ursula Schröder (IFSH) and Prof. Dr. Markus Kotzur (Universität Hamburg) as discussion moderators.

Two hundred people from the areas of academia, politics, and civil society took part in Universität Hamburg’s Villa-Vigoni Forum: the Latvian president and alumnus of Universität Hamburg, Egils Levits, held the first Hamburg Address on the Future of Europe.

With a look at the Europe of the future, Levits summarized his views as a scientist and as a politician with confidence: “Europe will be as Europe should be.” He was already scheduled to speak at Universität Hamburg on 24 February 2022, but that was the day that the war in Ukraine began and Levits returned to his country posthaste. On 28 April 2023, he was finally able to make a return visit and give his address.

Prof. Dr. Hauke Heekeren, president of Universität Hamburg, touched upon the events in his welcome speech: “The last 14 months mark a turning point in European policy and are shaped by the fundamental questions about how the Forum will face and discuss it: What holds Europe together, and how, in the face of this attack on a sovereign nation? What does the future of Europe as a community bound by laws and values look like, what is the status of Europe’s strategic sovereignty?” Heekeren addressed the honorary guest: “A great speech on the future of Europe requires great Europeans! Who, then, is better suited for the first Hamburg Address on the Future of Europe than Egils Levits?”

What holds the EU together?

In a subsequent panel discussion, Oleksii Makeiev, Ukrainian ambassador to the Federal Republic of Germany, Almut Möller, state secretary and representative of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg for the Federal German government, and Ivo Belet, senior expert in the cabinet of the vice president of the European Commission and commissar for democracy and demography, among others, discussed the question as to what held the European Union together in the face of national and international crises.

Levits, born in Riga in 1955, attended the Latvian Gymnasium in Münster from 1973 after his Jewish family was expelled from the Soviet Union. He began law studies in 1982 and political science studies in 1986 at Universität Hamburg.

Levits’ talk and a short video of the event will soon be posted on the pages of the Hamburg-Vigoni Forum (in German only).