The Ukrainian Lunch in Munich
Since 2017, the Victor Pinchuk Foundation has been hosting The Ukrainian Lunch in Munich during the Munich Security Conference. The aim is to keep Ukraine on the agenda and underline its importance for Europe's security and the international order. Political and opinion leaders and professionals from around the world gather to debate current challenges and ways forward.
In 2019, the panel discussion "Ukraine 2019 – Choices Ahead" was focused on the challenges, choices and decisions ahead of Ukraine in a year of presidential and parliamentary elections.
In 2019, the panel discussion "Ukraine 2019 – Choices Ahead" was focused on the challenges, choices and decisions ahead of Ukraine in a year of presidential and parliamentary elections.
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I am really proud of our tradition to offer the Munich Security Conference as a platform for discussion of Ukrainian issues. I think this has been an important contribution to making the Western world aware of what was actually going on. Your country has anadmirably active and young civil society and young political elite. This is a hugely important asset of Ukraine and we should all make efforts to play this up.
The event brought together Kersti Kaljulaid, President of Estonia, Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada (2017-2019), Kurt Volker, U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations (2017-2019), and Pavlo Klimkin, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine (2014-2019). It also featured contributions from Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference and member of the YES board, Anders Samuelsen, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark (2016-2019), U.S. Senators Bob Casey and Roger Wicker, as well as Yulia Tymoshenko, leader of the political party "Batkivshchyna", Anatoliy Grytsenko, leader of the "Civic Position" political party, and others. Stephen Sackur, Presenter, HARDtalk, BBC World News, moderated the discussion.
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Ukrainians are quite confident that they want to move to the West, but Ukraine should be moving quicker. How to move? It sounds pathetically simple: nothing else but rule of law, fight with corruption, free media, economically even playing field for everybody.
