This year, the peace talks on German Unity Day will focus on our European neighbor Latvia. The Baltic republic has a population of just under two million and has been a member of the European Union and NATO since 2004. Latvia is one of the NATO countries that shares a border with Russia. In light of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine, the country faces an acute threat to European security. In response, Latvia is investing heavily in strengthening its defense.
The keynote speaker will be Egils Levits, who was President of the Republic of Latvia from 2019 to 2023. He will share with the audience his perspective on geopolitical developments in the world and in Europe, ways to consolidate the political significance of the European Union, and the role of Germany.
Egils Levits was born in Riga in 1955 and grew up in Latvia, which was still under Soviet occupation at the time. He emigrated to West Germany with his parents in 1972. He went to school in Münster and studied law and political science at the University of Hamburg. After Latvia regained its independence, he became the country’s first ambassador to Germany in 1992 and served as Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Justice of Latvia from 1993 to 1994. From 1995 to 2004, Egils Levits served as a judge at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg and from 2004 to 2019 as a judge at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg. In 2019, he was elected President of Latvia by the Latvian Parliament.
