On 2 March 2021, CEE expert Ivan Krastev joined us for the online keynote: “Is it Tomorrow yet? How the pandemic changes Europe”. What are the consequences of the pandemic that will set the course of the world in the coming years? Loss of vision is characteristic of every pandemic: we do not see the disease until it arrives, and when it does, we do not understand what is happening either. In the ensuing discussion, the close to 300 participants had the opportunity to discuss the paradoxes that COVID-19 has brought to light regarding globalization: international cooperation, authoritarianism, social cohesion and the European project.

Ivan Krastev is the chairman of the Centre for Liberal Strategies and permanent fellow at the Institute for Human Sciences, IWM Vienna. He is a founding board member of the European Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the Board of Trustees of The International Crisis Group and is a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times. He is the author of “Is it Tomorrow, Yet? How the Pandemic Changes Europe” (in German by Ullstein, June 2020; in English by Penguin, October 2020); The Light that Failed: A Reckoning (Allen Lane, 2019), co-authored with Stephen Holmes – won the 30th Annual Lionel Gelber Prize; “After Europe” (UPenn Press, 2017); “Democracy Disrupted. The Global Politics on Protest” (UPenn Press, 2014) and “In Mistrust We Trust: Can Democracy Survive When We Don’t Trust Our Leaders?” (TED Books, 2013). Ivan Krastev is the winner of the Jean Améry Prize for European Essay Writing 2020.

Watch the keynote’s video recording on the website of  NGO Academy.

NGO Academy is a capacity building programme for NGOs in CEE and a joint project of the ERSTE Foundation and the Competence Center for Nonprofit Organizations and Social Entrepreneurship of Vienna University for Economics and Business.

Moreover, we would like to thank participant Markus Engelberger who created a graphic recording of this event, visualizing the interconnectivity of the diverse topics discussed in the keynote! You can find the complete version of it on Markus’ website.