13 November 2023. The M100 Advisory Board mourns the loss of its member Karel zu Schwarzenberg, who was a member of the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium Advisory Board from the very beginning. Schwarzenberg, born on 10 December 1937 in Prague, died on Sunday night in Vienna, four weeks before his 86th birthday.
Schwarzenberg was a close companion of Václav Havel. He was Foreign Minister of the Czech Republic from 2007 to 2009 and from 2010 to 2013. From 2009 to 2015, he was chairman of the newly founded TOP 09 party. In 2013, he ran for President of the Czech Republic but was defeated by Miloš Zeman.
Schwarzenberg, who gave the dinner speech at the M100 Sanssouci Colloquium in 2019, was not only held in high esteem by the M100 Advisory Board. “Europe has become poorer with the death of Karel Schwarzenberg,” wrote Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen in an obituary. “His life and work was characterised by responsibility and clear-sightedness. Liberal, conservative, cosmopolitan and patriotic, as contradictory as these terms may seem, in Karel Schwarzenberg they came together.” For Schwarzenberg, Europe “was not just a vision, but a “concern that he served with all his abilities.” Our sympathy goes out to his family and friends.
