“Freedom of press and opinion are the basic pillars of democracy. The agency Medienlabor is pleased to support M100, an organisation, which stands up for these values very actively for years, focuses on extremely relevant issues and offers a forum for an exchange between journalists.”
Daniel Wetzel, Managing Director Agentur Medienlabor, Potsdam
“At the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium you can meet foreign colleagues that you usually would not meet. This gives us a different impression about the situation in Europe – about countries such as Ukraine or Romania, for instance, where German journalists usually do not travel.”
Gabor Steingart, Publisher “Handelsblatt”, Germany
Potsdam, 19 July, 2017. “Democracy or Despotism? The Renaissance of Dark Powers” is the topic of this year’s M100 Sanssouci Colloquium. And Can Dündar, editor-in-chief of the Turkish-German news platform “Özgürüz” and former editor-in-chief of the Turkish newspaper “Cumhuriyet“, is particularly familiar with this year’s topic.
“In times of a crumbling Europe and increasing censorship on the one hand as well as Fake News and hate speech on the other hand, it is particularly important that we take a stand for freedom of press and opinion. We have to take care that new audiovisual platforms will not be misused as instruments for demagogues. The Medienboard supports the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium in order to promote a journalistic exchange on the European level and to discuss modern conditions for a democratic, tolerant and cosmopolitan society.”
Helge Jürgens, Managing Director of Media Development, Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg
The M100 Sanssouci Colloquium cooperates with the young European grassroots thinktank Polis 180. The thinktank aims at integrating ideas, analyses and solutions of the young generation through innovative, participative and inclusive Aapproaches in the political discourse, developing alternatives for a constructive European and foreign policy through new and creative formats and translating scientificfindings for political decision-makers. At the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium members of the thinktanks take part in the Sessions and enrich debates with results of studies and surveys.
“Western democracy now looks poor. It is like a tree without roots and with falling leaves. Post-Soviet nations such as Ukraine and Georgia or pro-European opposition movement in Russia aim to follow Europe sharing the same values. But the Western democracy has become a simulacrum and to run after it is the same as to run after a ghost.”
Victor Erofeev, Writer, Russia
“Europe should learn by experience. Morally overstraining the idea of an „ever closer union“ has pushed up the idea of the European Union too far to an ideology. In this way it has lost the ability for self-criticism and correction – and thereby it endangers its unique historical achievements. Europe needs a smart mix of realism and ideas – a flexible union relying on different member states, since they are (and most likely remain to be) the guardians of democracy.”
Prof. Dr. Andreas Rödder, Professor of Contemporary History, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany
Potsdam, July 10, 2017. About 60 highly qualified young journalists from all the Eastern Partnership countries (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine) as well as from Russia have applied for this year’s #M100YEJ, titled “How to finance independent journalism”. The selection was challenging, because we could only choose 15 out of all the creative, experienced and promising applicants. Thanks to all applicants for their amazing and impressing applications. We want to encourage you to continue pursuing your projects and ideas. To all the selected, we hope to provide you valuable advice and contacts for the realisation of your own projects. You can find the list of this year’s participants of the M100YEJ 2017 here:
“The development in more and more countries in the world shows that freedom of press and opinion are mandatory for democracies. The media cooperation between Deutsche Welle and M100 Sanssouci Colloquium helps channeling the journalistic energy on this important European platform for the defence of those values.”
Peter Limbourg, Director, Deutsche Welle, Germany
These are the moderators of this year’s #M100SC, titled “Democracy or Despotism? The Renaissance of Dark Powers”: Astrid Frohloff, Ali Aslan, Christoph Lanz and Leonard Novy. The event takes place on Thursday, 14 September 2017 in the Orangery of Potsdam-Sanssouci.
