A conference on “Diplomacy in the era of geopolitical revisions – in the Footsteps of Alexandros Caratheodoris” will take place in the northeastern town of Orestiada, close to the border with Turkey, on Monday and Tuesday.
The conference is part of a series, Applied Greek-French Dialogues, organized alternately in France and Greece, and will be the sixth such annual event.
“This meeting aims to exchange views, compare representations and formulate thoughts on the adaptation of Diplomacy and International Organizations to the new conditions. As France and Greece converge in their emphasis on International Law, this cooperation is becoming particularly productive,” the event’s organizers said in a statement.
The Caratheodory Family Heritage Association are co-organizers of the conference. The Ethnological Museum of Thrace and the Centre Culturel Hellenique are collaborating. The event is under the aegis of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.
Alexandros Caratheodoris (1833-1906), scion of a prominent Phanariote family, was a diplomat and civil servant in the Ottoman Empire, serving as Foreign Minister, Governor of Crete (twice) and Prince of Samos. More relevant to the theme of the conference, he was the head of the Ottoman delegation to the Congress of Berlin, in June and July 1878.
The Berlin congress, which confirmed the independence of Bulgaria but limited its territorial size and limited Russian influence established by the Treaty of San Stefano is both an example of international cooperation and a cautionary tale. Initially hailed as having averted further conflict and restored stability in a volatile region, its result left most participants disappointed, angry and eager to eventually undo the compromises reached. The Balkan wars that erupted some 35 years later are the most prominent but not the only consequence.
The conference aims to renew and enrich the reflection on the upcoming geopolitical developments.
In the footsteps of Caratheodoris and the other Berlin Congress participants, the conference will reflect on the analogies with today’s geopolitical reality and the prospects for rethinking and revising public diplomacy in an innovative and effective way.
Keynote speakers include former Belgian prime minister and first permanent European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and two former Presidents of Greece’s Council of State, Panagiotis Pikrammenos and Katerina Sakellaropoulou, both of whom went to serve in higher office, Sakellaropoulou as President of the Hellenic Republic and Pikrammenos as Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister.