Whilst the media world is rightly focussed on the situation in Ukraine, An impressive array of public figures from around the world are planning to meet at the European National Conservatism Conference, to be held from March 23-24 in Brussels.
The conference theme for the inaugural edition is ‘The Future of the National State in Europe’ and includes several European heads of state in attendance as well national party leaders, senior politicians and an eclectic mix of thought leaders, academics and journalists due to speak.
The National Conservatism Conference is a project of the influential Edmund Burke Foundation in the United States with the aim of strengthening the principles of national conservatism in Western and other democratic countries. ‘NatCons’ as they are fondly known have held previous events in the US, drawing in high ranking Senators and Congressmen including Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley alongside intellectual thinkers and writers such as Yoram Hazony and Chris du Muth, media moguls like Tucker Carlson and businessmen such as Peter Tiel.
The conference conveners say that the West, the anchor of the democratic world, faces unprecedented dangers. Almost overnight, the liberalism that held sway since the Second World War has been challenged by a progressive, cultural neo-Marxism making a bid to capture leading institutions on both sides of the Atlantic. At the same time, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine threatens to upend the post-war order in Europe and beyond, adding to the challenges posed by open hostility of the Chinese regime, a geopolitical rival largely built by the U.S. over the past three decades. For some time now, we’ve witnessed the European Union usurp the authority of its sovereign member states and use the power of the purse to exact political and ideological compliance in areas such as energy security, social policy, and immigration. The West is threatened both internally and externally, and its deterioration threatens to take the other democratic nations down with it.
“Our aim is a transatlantic coalition of national conservatives together with anti-Marxist liberals committed to preserving and defending the independent nation-state,” Conference Chairman Christopher DeMuth says. “We believe this coalition can work out a common path, charting a course forward for conservatives in the West.”
