2 augusti 2012
Welcome address by Jiri Schwarz,
Chairman of the MPS 2012 Organizing Committee
Dear friends of liberty and individual responsibility,
It will be immense pleasure to welcome you at the greatest
festival of classical liberal thinking under the auspices of the
Mont Pelerin Society. This distinguished society for the defense
and cultivation of principles of individual liberty will have its
General 2012 Meeting in Prague from Sunday, September
2nd, to Friday, September 7th. The capital of
the Czech Republic is a charming city, even more so at the end of
summer. The stable and sunny weather with temperatures pleasant for
sightseeing has inspired us to offer you rich pre- and
post-conference travel program. It will enable us to present you
some Bohemian rarities and you will have opportunity to discover
that there lie many more treasures beyond the mysterious medieval
Prague. In this you will follow in the footsteps of such greats as
the German poet and polymath Johann Wolfgang Goethe who sang
praises for the western Bohemian spas in his Marienbad Elegies.
The Mont Pelerin Society General Meeting 2012 in Prague offers
an inspiring and rigorous program focusing on both fundamental and
topical issues challenging the current Euro-Atlantic civilization.
Governments have begun to grow again at the beginning of the
21st century, public affairs have started to be
preferred to private ones once again and the politicization of
societies has increased in comparison with the era following the
demise of Communism and the Berlin Wall collapse towards the end of
last century. Challenges which spurned the foundation of the Mont
Pelerin Society 65 years ago are reasserting themselves again,
albeit in modified forms. Such are the serious issues to be
analyzed by our invited speakers. Their list is a guarantee of
highest quality contributions with original ideas, stimulating deep
intellectual discussion.
Three full conference days will be followed by a day-trip to the
famous Karlovy Vary spas (Karlsbad) and will culminate at Prague
Castle, seat of Holy Roman Emperors and Kings as well as
Czechoslovak and Czech Presidents, where we will be hosted by
Professor Václav Klaus, the President of the Czech Republic and a
distinguished member of the Mont Pelerin Society. Do not hesitate
and take the opportunity to be part of this intellectual event
unparalleled in the 2012 calendar!
You may be interested to note that Prague already hosted the
Mont Pelerin Society once in the past: The same conference hotel
was the venue also for the 1991 MPS Regional Meeting with the
general topic "In Search of a Transition to a Free Society". I am
sure that especially those who participated then will now avail
themselves of the opportunity to compare and evaluate the changes
that Prague and the Czech Society have undergone over the two
decades.
All necessary information about registration, travel,
accommodation, the conference program and other useful information
about Prague and Czech Republic can be found on this website.
Should you have any additional questions or requirements, do not
hesitate to contact the Organizing committee (info@mps2012.org). All staff,
the Center for Politics and Economics (CEP) and the Liberalni
Institut (LI) are doing their utmost for complete satisfaction of
the Mont Pelerin Society Members and their partners and guests, to
make your stay in Prague and the Czech Republic most rewarding.
On behalf
of the Organizing Committee, I am sincerely looking forward to
seeing you in Prague.
MPS 2012 Webbsite
Conference
program