You are kindly invited to register to an international conference “Solidarity with Refugees in our Past and in our Future”.

When? September 24, 2021

Where? Prague City Hall and online

Solidarity belongs to the heart of cooperation of 27 Member States of the European Union. The values of rule of law, human rights, solidarity, and justice are not abstract and distant; they are a binding part of the EU legislation and national legislation of the EU Member States. These values are deeply embedded in the Treaty on European Union, Lisbon Treaty, the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights, etc. Mutual solidarity of EU Member States in all possible situations, cooperation and mutual support is the only way to make the EU 27 a strong and reliable partner for the outside world with a lot of challenges be it climate change or migration. What we see today, not only in the asylum and migration field and especially in Central Europe, is the lack of mutual solidarity. We see attempts to exploit EU subsidies as much as possible and at the same time blaming the EU for almost all shortcomings of the globalized societies and for our own weaknesses and failures.

Refugees are the best example of the lack of solidarity and the shortcomings of national responses to the plight of refugees. We, the Central Europeans, do not care that Greece, Italy or Cyprus suffer from never-ending arrivals of refugees and migrants, we do not address that refugee rights are being violated almost everywhere on their route to the “civilized West”. We have completely forgotten that we ourselves were refugees and we continuously “exported” our Czech, Polish or Hungarian refugees for 40 years in the last century. Today, our politicians speak always about illegal migrants like refugees do not exist whatsoever; they demand the protection of often unprotectable borders, propose unrealistic and lengthy border or pre-screening procedures somewhere on the outskirts of the European Union, returns of migrants or processing the asylum claims of refugees in specialized centers in third countries that have no reason to accept such unfair “solutions”. This narrative must be changed, and we would like to seek together during this conference the ways how can and should our states contribute to the more just and solidary responses of the European Union towards people seeking protection in Europe.

Please register via this link: here

Full conference program is available: here

More information can be accessed: here

The conference will be held in the framework of Solidarity in a Future Europe project, co-funded by the Europe for Citizens Programme of the EU.