Kristiansand municipality – Ukraine’s former president Viktor Yushchenko is coming to the European conference

Archive photo from Viktor Yushchenko’s participation in 2022. This year he will physically come to the European Conference (photo: Kjell Inge Søreide)

For the 5th year in a row, the Council of Europe, KS, Kristiansand Municipality and a strong regional partnership are collaborating to organize the European Conference on Democracy and Human Rights in Kristiansand, Monday 6 May 2024. This year, former President of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko will introduce Ukraine’s integration into Europe.

– Russia’s warfare against Ukraine affects the entire situation in Europe. This has been a main issue at the annual European conference in Kristiansand since 2022, and we greatly appreciate that the former president of Ukraine, Viktor Yushchenko, has accepted my invitation to attend this year’s conference himself, says Kristiansand’s mayor Mathias Bernander. He appeared on video two years ago, when his trip could not be completed for security reasons.

Will support Ukraine

– Kristiansand attaches great importance to supporting Ukraine, says Bernander. – We signed a cooperation agreement with Mykolaiv in Ukraine during last year’s European conference, and the two municipalities have cooperated on local democracy, business, measures for youth and infrastructure. An example of this is a shipment of six buses to Mykolaiv. We are pleased that the mayor of Mykolaiv is coming to the European conference, and I look forward to meeting him to discuss further cooperation. There will also be a large youth delegation from Ukraine to Kristiansand. This will also be highlighted during the European conference

The annual European Conference on Democracy and Human Rights in Kristiansand is one of Europe’s largest events to mark Europe Day, which was instituted to commemorate the establishment of the Council of Europe in 1949. This year is the 75th anniversary of the Council of Europe, and this will be marked at the European Conference in Kristiansand, with participation from the Council of Europe’s leadership and from the Storting.

Other current topics at the conference are the War Damage Register for Ukraine, which has recently been established in The Hague, and which is being presented in Norway for the first time, and the new European regulations from the EU and the Council of Europe for regulating the use of artificial intelligence. Freedom of expression and artistic freedom is the theme of the European conference’s evening program, which is chaired by Agnes Kittelsen.