President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko to open the plenary sessions of the 13th YES Annual Meeting

On Friday, 16 September, the plenary sessions of the 13th Yalta European Strategy annual meeting, “The World, Europe, Ukraine: Storms of Changes”, will start by a welcome speech of the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, followed by the debate of speakers and participants of the forum with the chief of the Ukrainian State. 

As previously reported, the 13th YES annual meeting will be held in Kyiv on September 15-17. The plenary sessions and special sections of the forum will take place at the Mystetsky Arsenal national museum and cultural centre. More than 350 prominent politicians, diplomats, businessmen, civil activists and experts from 20 countries of the world will take part in the work of the forum. 

The first day of the plenary sessions will be focused on the key geopolitical, economic and social challenges that Europe, Ukraine and the world are facing. The discussion panels of the first plenary day will include a debate on the current situation in the European Union; prospects and challenges that Turkey is facing; implications of the US presidential election 2016 for the global politics and international relations, as well as the global challenge of social inequality, terrorism and radicalism issues. The first plenary day will resume with a debate on the issues of international support for Ukraine in the context of the Russian aggression, economic crisis and running the reforms. 

The discussions of the first plenary day will feature President of the European Commission (2004-2014), Prime Minister of Portugal (2002-2004) Jose Manuel Barroso, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Denmark Kirstian Jensen, 39th Prime Minister of Denmark (2001-2009), 12th NATO Secretary General (2009-2014) Anders Fogh Rasmussen, EU Commissioner for European Neighbourhood Policy & Enlargement Negotiations Johannes Hahn, Vice Prime Minister of Turkey Mehmet Simsek, European Commission Vice President for the Euro and Social Dialogue, Prime Minister of Latvia (2009-2014) Valdis Dombrovkis, philosopher and writer Bernard-Henri Levy, director of the Institute of Politics at the University of Chicago, Chief Strategist and senior advisor to US President Barack Obama (2009-2011) David Axelrod, Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration Karl Rove, 58th Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives (1995-1999) Newt Gingrich, Foreign Minister of Sweden (2006-2014), Prime Minister of Sweden (1991-1994) Carl Bildt, Managing Partner at Parnasse International, IMF Managing Director (2007-2011) Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Niall Ferguson, Chairman of the Munich Security Conference, member of the YES Board Wolfganf Ischinger, United States Secretary of Defence (2006-2011), CIA Director (1991-1993) Robert Gates. 

The Ukrainian speakers of the first plenary day will include Head of the Supervisory Board of Aspen Institute Kyiv, Minister of Finance of Ukraine (2014-2016) Natalia Jaresko, Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine for European and Euro-Atlantic Integration Ivanna Klympush-Tsintsadze, Co-Founder of the Centre for Economic Strategy, civil activist, singer at “Okean Elzy” Sviatoslav Vakarchuk, Chair of the People’s Front party, Prime Minister of Ukraine (2014-2016) Arseniy Yatseniuk.