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 (). 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.

Detailed programme can be found here.

For more details please visit the website.