The London Security Conference: Frontlines of Europe is a high-level international forum examining the strategic, security, and resilience challenges facing Europe’s most exposed regions,.
Europe’s security architecture is being tested at its edges – in the Arctic, in Ukraine, and across the Caucasus and the Black Sea. These are not peripheral theatres. They are where the credibility of European deterrence is established or lost, and where the assumptions underpinning the continent’s post-Cold War order are being probed most systematically. Yet the states and societies bearing that pressure remain under-represented in the forums where European strategy is actually formed. The London Security Conference exists to correct that imbalance.
08:30 – 09:00 Registration & welcome
09:00 – 09:15 Opening and Introductory Remarks
Speakers:
Alva Finn, Executive Director, European Liberal Forum (ELF)
Henrik Bach Mortensen, Vice President & Security and Defence Working Group Chair, Liberal International (LI)
George Melashvili, President, Europe-Georgia Institute (EGI)
09:15 – 09:45 Keynote addresses
Speakers:
Dilan Yeşilgöz-Zegerius, Minister of Defence, Deputy Prime Minister of the Netherlands
Sir Ed Davey, Leader of the Liberal Democrats
09:45 – 09:50 Stage reset
A short pause while the platform is reconfigured for the Spotlight Chat
09:50 – 10:50 Spotlight Chat
Baroness Sal Brinton in conversation with Mustafa Nayyem (TBC)
10:50 – 10:55 Stage reset
10:55 – 11:55 The Next Battlefield: Emerging Technologies and European Defence
Europe’s security environment is being reshaped by the rapid diffusion of digital and emerging technologies, from uncrewed systems and electronic warfare to artificial intelligence, spacebased assets and the contest for critical infrastructure. Russia’s continuing invasion of Ukraine has thrown that shift into sharp relief, demonstrating how quickly comparatively inexpensive capabilities can unsettle established assumptions about deterrence and defence. This panel considers what these developments mean in practice for Europe’s defence posture: where the continent’s technological and industrial base remains exposed, how far innovation can be translated into deployable capability at the pace required, and which trade-offs now confront policymakers in London, Brussels and allied capitals. Speakers will address the choices that can no longer reasonably be deferred, and the institutional reform needed to meet them.
Moderator:
Julie Smith, Baroness Smith of Newnham
Speakers:
Dr. Sebastian Seidel, Hertie School / Oxford Emerging Threats Group
Michael Coteau, The Honourable Member of Parliament for Scarborough-Woburn, Canada
Alla Soroka, Head of International Partnerships, Sternenko Community Foundation
George Melashvili, President, Europe-Georgia Institute (EGI)
11:55 – 12:55 Who Governs Arctic Security? Assessing the relevance of international bodies in a contested Arctic
The Arctic is no longer a frozen region far apart. Receding ice, emerging shipping routes, contested resource claims and renewed military activity have made the High North a theatre of strategic competition, while the institutions charged with governing it were designed for a considerably quieter era. This session examines how state power and international institutions now interact across the region, how great-power competition is eroding the authority of established bodies such as the Arctic Council and the UN Security Council, and whether those bodies remain fit for purpose. In doing so it asks what a credible governance architecture for a contested Arctic would need to look like, and who might realistically build it.
Moderator:
Martin E. Sandbu, Financial Times’s European economics commentator
Speakers:
Lori Idlout, Member of Parliament for Nunavut, Canada
Vivian Motzfeldt, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Greenland
Henrik Bach Mortensen, Vice President & Security and Defence
Working Group Chair, Liberal International (LI)
Nail Farkhatdinov, Executive Director, Arctida
12:55 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 14:30 Exposing Europe’s Black Sea blind spots: From crisis response to coherent strategy
The Black Sea has become one of the most consequential and least coherently governed theatres in European security, a region in which maritime access, energy infrastructure, freedom of navigation and frontline resilience all converge. Western engagement there has too often been reactive, organised around successive crises rather than any settled strategic framework, leaving partner states to manage sustained pressure with intermittent support. This panel brings together regional and allied perspectives to examine what effective support genuinely requires, where present policy falls short, and how Europe and its partners might move from ad hoc crisis response towards a steadier and more coherent regional strategy.
Moderator:
Alva Finn, Executive Director, European Liberal Forum (ELF)
Speakers:
Yevheniia Kravchuk, Member of Parliament of Ukraine, ALDE Vice President
Beka Bajelidze, Regional Director, Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR)
Dan Barna, Member of European Parliament, Renew Europe Group, Member of the Bureau Galip Dalay, Senior Research Fellow, Middle East and North Africa, Europe and Russian & Eurasia Programmes, Chatham House
14:30 – 15:30 Eastern Europe at a Turning Point: Strategies for Defence and Democratic Resilience
Across Eastern Europe, mounting external pressure and domestic strain are testing both the hard edge of security and the resilience of democratic institutions. Hybrid interference, information operations, elite capture and the instrumentalisation of law have proved as consequential as conventional military threat, and frequently a good deal harder to counter, not least because they exploit the openness on which democratic societies depend. Drawing on practitioners with direct experience of the region, this session considers what defence and resilience now demand of governments, civil society and Europe’s wider institutions – and whether the two are too readily traded off against one another.
Moderator
Adam Reichardt, Editor-in-Chief, New Eastern Europe
Speakers:
Dr. Jody LaPorte, University of Oxford
Alexander Sikorski, Founder and co-CEO, Zryw
Andrea Keerbs, Network Director at World Liberty Congress
Jonas Oehman, Co-Founder, Blue/Yellow
15:30 – 16:00 Closing session
Astrid Thors, Deputy President, Liberal International
Alva Finn, Executive Director, ELF
Day 2, September 8
Deep Dive Track Programme (by invitation only)
Lawrence Robson Room
10:00 – 12:00 Deep Dive Track: Frontlines of Europe East of the Frontline
Jonas Oehman, Co-founder, Blue/Yellow
Noel Hadjimichael, Chair, Defence and Security Circle, National Liberal Club
Alla Soroka, Head of International Partnerships, Sternenko Community Foundation
Henrik Bach Mortensen, Vice President & Security and Defence Working Group Chair, Liberal International (LI)
12:10 – 13:00 Working Lunch
13:00 – 15:00 Deep Dive Track Frontlines of Europe: Between Empires
Dr. Hans Gutbrod, Professor, Ilia State University
Areg Kochinyan, President of the Armenian Council, coordinator of the Peace Bridge Initiative
Teona Akubardia, Board Member, Georgia’s strategic Analysis Center
Shalva Chkheidze, Executive Director, Europe-Georgia Institute