COPENHAGEN, Denmark — With democracy under threat in many nations, the Copenhagen Democracy Summit took place on June 22 with the hope of building a global “Alliance for Democracy.” Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the former Danish prime minister and former secretary general of NATO, was the driving force behind the new initiative that took place in the capital of Denmark.
He managed to bring together top politicians, including ex-U.S. Vice President Joseph Biden, ex-Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, ex-Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar and many others.
“Today gives us an opportunity to recommit to principles we often take for granted – freedom, democracy, open markets and an open society. For too long we have assumed that these values are unquestionable. And like in Hans Christian Andersen’s tale ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ we have for too long refused to see the naked truth. The truth is that democracy is in decline in every region of the world. It is ironic that citizens living in democratic societies have never been so free, so empowered, so peaceful and were offered so many opportunities and yet many of these people no longer feel that our democratic systems served them well,” Rasmussen said in his opening remarks.
Therefore, the question now is how to fix this “dangerous disconnect,” Rasmussen said. “Autocratic and undemocratic states are successfully weaponizing our free societies. They spread fear and confusion and turn our freedom into a strategic weakness when it should be our strongest asset. We want to make democracy great again. The foundation of our international roots of order is under threat from forces within and outside. The transatlantic alliance has been called in to question. The multilateral trading system is on the edge and our elections are at risk of meddling. It does not have to be this way. We have to be united in this common endeavor.”
He is convinced that a world without American leadership would be “a less free and less democratic world, but America should not carry the burden of leadership alone. The other democracies in the world have an equally important duty to assist in the defense of the free world. We will build a robust alliance that unites thinkers from politics, business, media and civil society to discuss the future of freedom and democracy.”
Rasmussen said he has formed a transatlantic commission on election integrity. “We will take action to tackle the election method. The premise is simple – between now and the U.S. presidential election there will be over 20 elections in European Union, NATO countries, including the U.S. midterms and European elections. We know that Russia has been interfering on both sides of the Atlantic. And we can’t be certain that they will not try again. Others may seek to copy their playbook. So we must work across the Atlantic and we must close the gaps in our policy response.”
This commission is a group of experts with “a wealth of experience in politics, business, technology and the media. He said they “will make recommendations, sound the alarm and raise awareness of challenges and solutions to be developed. But we must tackle election integrity in a manner that contains the free elections and free speech.”
During the panel discussion, everyone agreed that democracy is under threat.
“Unless democracies, in general, rediscover the ability to reform themselves, revitalize themselves socially, economically, politically, then of course democracies will be increasingly discredited in the eyes of millions of people whom we ask to vote every few years. A great problem we have in one democracy after another is paralysis. We have too much corruption in places where the democratic system is not answering to people,” former United Kingdom deputy prime minister Nick Clegg said.
Former Mexican President Felipe Calderon assured that democracy is “the only one regime where freedom is the way to live. The young generation takes this for granted, they never imagine another way in this world where you have a chance to have your own liberty. It is difficult to explain. In other regimes, there is no Facebook and there is no Twitter.”
The same opinion was shared by former Estonian President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, who said that “now we have a young generation who does not know life without democratic rights and freedom. This is part of the problem in Europe. Old people remember the communist regimes in the heart of Europe. You have to know your history, how bad it can get,” he said.
Panelists identified challenges ranging from Russian trolls to U.S. President Donald J. Trump’s policies.
Biden, who gave the keynote address, said: “The threat to democracy isn’t confined just to Russia. Authoritarians are raising in every region of the world. Repressive regimes from China to Iran, Venezuela, are weakening democratic forces and our societies. At the same time, in established democracies, including my own country, we are seeing an appeal to populism, nationalism, and xenophobia, weakening democratic norms and institutions. Frustrated and disaffected voters may turn to strongmen. Demagogues and charlatans step up to stoak people’s legitimate fears and push the blame on the other. There is nothing new here.”
Biden said he was direct in speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“The Kremlin wants to weaken democratic institutions, to divide Europe and scorn institutions of NATO and the EU, and to delegitimize the international world order. Why wouldn’t they?”
He called the idea of transatlantic commission on election integrity critical.
“It is not enough to know what happened in the past; we have to anticipate to the next evolution of these tactics. We have to educate voters in countries to understand how influence was bought and sold to preserve a character of our open, vibrant and innovative society by preventing interference of a few bad actors. One of the question we have to face is how do we do this. Establishing a greater transparency is the first and most important step. We can expose meddling in real time’, Biden explained his view.
He also believes that it is necessary to defend the rule of law. “That is why we have to stand with those nations which are on the front lines of democracy, newly democratic states like Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova. They need help and support,” Biden continued.
He thinks it is important is to “battle the misguided perception that Western democracy may no longer offer the best path to geopolitical success. We have to keep strengthening our alliance and resist those who undermine our solidarity. We have to double what we know works; inclusive institutions, rule of law, equal protection, equal opportunity for everyone. That is what makes open democratic societies the most prosperous, resilient and strongest states in the world. We have loudly to defend our shared values. We have to recommit ourselves to work for our values even if it is very hard, respecting rule of law, honoring independent judiciary, separation of powers, demonstrate freedom of speech and freedom of press, reminding people what will happen to them individually in these days when these freedoms would not exist,” said Biden.
He concluded: “We have to speak out. If we will not stand up for our democratic future, nobody will. Folks, democracy is about one simple thing – freedom, freedom and freedom”.
Speaking with the Kyiv Post, Rasmussen explained that the Copenhagen Democracy Summit is not “just a think tank, it is a ‘do’ tank.” He said that “we will work for a follow up through a number of concrete programs. This is just a first summit. Our intention is to organize an annual democracy summit in Copenhagen. Between the summits, we will initiate a different program. For instance, a program called “expeditionary economics” which aims at promoting local economic development in emerging democracies, like Iraq or Afghanistan, to make democracy and freedom more sustainable. We will also educate young political leaders. So, it is a wide range of activities that will be a follow up to this summit.”
Joe Biden, ex-U.S. vice president, at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit. (Iryna Somer)
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, former prime minister of Denmark and former NATO secretary-general. (Somer)
