Professor Richard BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI at the conference "Parliamentary Traditions in East-Central Europe"

Photo: Paweł Kula. Source: www.sejm.gov.pl Between 20 and 22 October 2017 in Przemyśl and Krasiczyn in south-eastern Poland, a conference was held, hosted by Professor Zdzisław KRASNODĘBSKI MEP, under the auspices of the European Group of Conservatives and Reformers, on "Parliamentary Traditions in East-Central Europe". Historians, political scientists, sociologists, journalists and politicians from various parts of Europe gathered to discuss the region’s rich and often underappreciated heritage of liberty and parliamentarianism, as well as debate the current condition of parliamentarianism right across Europe.

Among the participants were the speakers of three parliaments – the Marshal of the Polish Sejm, Mr Maciej KUCHCIŃSKI; the President of the Ukrainian Verkhovna Rada, Mr Andrij PARUBIJ; and the Deputy Speaker of the Lithuanian Seimas, Mr Arvydas NEKROŠIUS. The conference was followed by the signing of a memorandum of understanding between Ukraine and Poland regarding of the building of the Via Carpatia, by the Polish Minister of Infrastructure and Building, Mr Andrzej ADAMCZYK; and the Ukrainian Minister of Infrastructure, Mr Volodymyr OMELYAN.

Professor Richard BUTTERWICK-PAWLIKOWSKI, Chairholder of the European Civilization Chair at the Natolin campus of the College of Europe, presented a paper titled "Ideas of Liberty in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth", in which he stressed the applicability, coherence and durability of the republican idea of liberty among citizens of the Commonwealth. At the same time he cautioned against stretching early modern sources too far in the service of even the worthiest political causes. The text can be read here.