Professor Piet Hein Donner gives Cleveringa lecture at CU












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            • Courage to speak up required in all difficult and turbulent times

            • Certain problems can no longer be denied and cannot be solved on their own or through ‘e


            • Solution is not to withdraw behind one’s own borders or to ‘go it alone’



            Prague’s Charles University is proud to have hosted its first Cleveringa lecture at the Pa

            week, commemorating a famous courageous protest speech by Professor Rudolph Pabus Cleverin
            26, 1940 at Leiden University against the dismissal of Jewish colleagues. The speech led t
            strike and closure of the university by the Nazis.


            In his address in the Patriotic Hall, Professor Piet Hein Donner, a former Minister of Jus
            Netherlands (and the Cleveringa Chairperson for Law , Freedom and Responsibility at Leiden

            2015/2016) discussed the need for individuals to take responsibility in periods of politic
            and turbulence even today – and to nurture and trust in democratic values and in constitut
            of easy and forceful solutions.


            The latter, he outlined in his presentation, chipped away at or eroded democratic and huma
            our predecessors fought hard to establish and sacrificed to restore.





            Watch Professor Donner's complete Cleveringa lecture, opened by CU's Rector Tomáš Zima and
            the Netherlands Ambassador Kees J.R. Klompenhouwer.



            I caught up with Professor Donner at the Patriotic Hall and my first question focused on t
            optimism of 1989 that had emerged with the fall of the Berlin Wall.


            “There has indeed been a change of mood from the Iron Curtain came down to the present day
            that can be traced back to 9/11 and people are feeling more insecure, they have lost optim

            trust themselves anymore and they don’t trust in political institutions anymore… Another p
            despite all of the economic growth, there is a growing number of people who haven’t seen t
            improve. And who also don’t have any perspective of improving their position.


            “That is a good feeding ground for politicians who promise to solve all the problems that 
            with ‘easy’ measures. Such as in Italy, giving out huge sums of money which will have to b

            on. That is the danger we are facing now: there are real problems but at the moment what i
            movement to ‘take back control’ actually threatens to lose control.”


            One of the things you touched upon is that these are easy solutions and Europe has seen th
            U.S., as a candidate, Mr Trump said “I alone can fix this”, you have populist or strong-ar
            places like Hungary and elsewhere. But in your lecture, you maintained these are at best s

            therefore not really solutions at all.

            “They are not solutions. And you can see it. Mr Trump is solving some problems maybe in th

            in the long-term he is undermining a whole system of trust in international relations on w
            and growth are built and founded for the future. The same goes in Europe: there are short-
            for what are now defined as immediate problems but like in the United States are denied su

            warming and climate change. Because if you recognize that it is a problem, then you immedi
            to recognize that you also cannot solve it on your own.”






            Are populist politicians in Europe promising a return to something which can no longer exi

            “What they promise – sovereign autonomous states where everybody manages their own problem

            reality we had in an earlier age. But that doesn’t take into account that in the meanwhile
            extremely interdependent as societies. Not only because of how economies have developed bu
            advent of digital techniques we have solved that know no frontier.


            “Individual states are no longer capable of solving questions of criminality, of global wa
            inequality and emerging social differences, on their own. We cannot tackle those problems 

            that is why we need European cooperation. That is not a limitation of possibilities but an
            can do more – together.”


            We have seen such a period of stability and peace in Europe within the EU for 50-60 years,
            economic growth: all the tools seem to be there. Obviously, reforms are needed but the too
            there…


            “The tools are still there but the world is changing and the mood of the people has change
            is going to be the problem. The real challenge is to convince people again that the soluti

            withdraw behind your own border but to cooperate. The problems we face are not easy to sol
            have fast solutions. We will be far better off if we try and find common solutions rather 
            own.


            “A case in point is global warming. As I indicated, in the Netherlands our lowest point is
            below sea level. We can take all kinds of steps we need to take against global warming but

            don’t do it, we’ll drown.