No new attendance record on site, but a significant increase in online viewership – that’s the result of the 11th European Tolerance Talks 2025. Over 8,000 interested people followed the 14 panel discussions via livestream, an increase of more than 25 percent compared to the previous year. On average, around 400 participants participated in each…
At the conclusion of the European Tolerance Talks 2025, the Board of Trustees of the Carinthian Democracy Workshop Denk.Raum.Fresach adopted a policy paper for a new understanding of the current global situation. The “Fresach World Order” provides explanations for historical developments and proposals for the future of Europe in an increasingly turbulent environment. Every single…
Longtime correspondent and war reporter Dr. Friedrich Orter (75) was awarded the European Tolerance Prize for Democracy and Human Rights by the City of Villach on Thursday evening. His gripping reports from many recent crisis regions and war zones have made television history, his commitment to truth and peace in the world is legendary, and…
Cathrin Kahlweit, longtime correspondent for the Süddeutsche Zeitung in London, Vienna, and Kyiv, advocates for a foreign and security policy buildup against internal and external enemies. In her speech at the opening of the European Tolerance Talks 2025 in the Carinthian mountain village of Fresach, the former peace activist emphasized the need to defend the…
Europe and its Enlightenment, the philosophers of the postwar period (Ghosts of the Present), concepts for more orientation (instead of order), ways out of the current labyrinth, and a compelling appeal for more independent thinking in dealing with concrete life situations were the focus of Renate Schmidtkunz’s opening discussion with the Berlin historian of philosophy…
Comedian Hosea Ratschiller and 70 students asked questions, and Hatto Käfer, a well-versed EU expert and former Commission official, delivered dry answers. This year’s youth forum at the Neue Bühne Villach was an entertaining hour of democracy education for young and old. The topic: Europe in Madness – Only with Humor ? was met with…
The Tolerance Talks 2025 opened in Fresach on June 1st with an extraordinary reading by Carinthian author Lydia Mischkulnig and a brilliant performance on the significance of historical women’s literature by the two authors Elisabeth Hafner and Regina Klein. The event honored Enheduanna, the daughter of the Sumerian king Sargon of Akkad in Mesopotamia, the…
Klagenfurt Cathedral Pastor Peter Allmaier pointed out that the current madness in politics and society can also be viewed as a “consequence of a wrong lifestyle.” The Bible, in particular, provides numerous examples of how people became mad because they lived wrongly, Allmaier said at a press conference at Denk.Raum.Fresach in Klagenfurt. Allmaier’s entire statement…
The spokesperson for Denk.Raum.Fresach, the Protestant superintendential curator for Carinthia and East Tyrol, Margarethe Prinz-Büchl, was a guest this week of Carinthian Governor Peter Kaiser, who thanked Kaiser for “her important commitment and the always attractive program of the tolerance talks.” Prinz-Büchl reported, among other things, on this year’s accompanying art project, which is being…
Hannes Swoboda, Chairman of the Board of the European Tolerance Talks, fears that politics is maneuvering itself into a situation from which it can no longer find a way out. Since the ideological and religious frameworks have largely dissolved, we should not be surprised that we are now stumbling into a society of madness, said…