Executive Director Dominic Schwickert reflects on the months leading up to the European elections and on reorganising the team. An editorial for the upcoming newsletter 1/2019.

The Innovation in Politics Awards are presented annually to honour courageous and creative political work throughout Europe – regardless of party or country. This year, 9 political projects from Germany made it to the finals. An international jury of 1,053 European citizens selected 80 finalists from more than 600 nominations. The winners will be announced at a gala event in November in Vienna.

After the establishment of a new grand coalition on 14th of March 2018 in Germany, Fedor Ruhose, Policy Fellow at Das Progressive Zentrum, and DPZ-Director Dominic Schwickert analyse the current state of the centre-left parties, in particular the SPD. They point out upcoming challenges in the national and European context and set out five key challenges which German social democrats must overcome.

Four policy briefs, several workshops and two high-profile speeches conclude the more than two-years transnational dialogue process at eye level with young, promising thinkers from Greece, Portugal, Italy, France, Spain and Germany.

How could populist movements become that strong in France, Italy and Germany? And how can progressives push back their influence? Eight proposals.

Over 700 guests attended the Progressive Governance Symposium and our tenth-anniversary celebration on 3 July 2017. Managing Director Dominic Schwickert takes stock of the day.

Conference Programme

Progressives are convinced that in times such as these, when fundamental questions are being raised about the future of our societies, a narrow-minded approach to politics is out of place. Only through wide-ranging debates, exchanging ideas and opinions, and interacting with scientific and social research can fresh impetus be generated to take us beyond the current impasse of political debate.

Terra Nova (France), Volta (Italy), and Das Progressive Zentrum (Germany) present strategic answers to the crucial question of how progressives and democrats across Europe should counter populism.

John Podesta is best known for his service as chief of staff to former US president Bill Clinton. He further chaired Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, served as a Counselor to Barack Obama and is the founder of the our US-partner think tank “Center for American Progress” (CAP). On May 3, 2017, Das Progressive Zentrum had the honour to welcome John Podesta for political talks in the German capital.

On 7-9 October 2016, Das Progressive Zentrum joined the third edition of the Cluny Forum as a cooperation partner. Created three years ago by the French-German Association “Trait d’Union”, this Forum creates new bridges between young and innovative managers from business as well as from the civil society working in one or both countries. Gathered together, they exchange experiences about their own working environment, discuss common challenges and design new ideas in a European perspective.

Important elections lie ahead in Germany. In the autumn of 2017, the German federal election will take place and prior to that, there is the politically highly significant state election in North Rhine-Westphalia. Against this background, we invited Guillaume Liegey to Das Progressive Zentrum in order to share some of his ideas about modern campaigning strategies.

On 23 and 24 September 2016, the European Reformists Summit entitled „Rebuilding Trust“ took place in Lyon. The event, being composed of an introductory roundtable, three workshops and a closing session, was organised by a European network of think tanks, consisting of Das Progressive Zentrum (Germany), Les Gracques (France), Institut Montaigne (France), Astrid (Italy) as well as Policy Network (UK).

On Friday, July 1, we hosted a roundtable discussion on the US American Presidential Elections. We were delighted to engage in a discussion with Ken Gude (Senior Fellow with the National Security Team, Center for American Progress), Paul Nolte (Professor of Contemporary History, Free University of Berlin), and Barbara Junge (Deputy Editor, taz.die tageszeitung). The roundtable was chaired by Sudha David-Wilp (Deputy Director Berlin Office and Senior Transatlantic Fellow, The German Marshall Fund of the United States).

On 28 June 2016 German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, together with the German Federal Minister of State for Europe, Michael Roth, officially launched the DIALOGUE ON EUROPE-project at the Europasaal of the German Federal Foreign Office in Berlin.

We are delighted to officially announce that we have started new strategic cooperations with the Italian think tank Volta as well as the French think tank Terra Nova.

Two weeks before British citizens go to the polls, our third roundtable on the Brexit referendum took place. Our key questions concerned current British debates, the latest developments in British politics at the eve of the referendum, as well as British, German, and European perspectives on how to proceed after this – in any case – decisive moment for Europe.

The recent Polish and French elections are especially topical and worrying reminders of the current rise of right-wing populist parties all over Europe. To debate this urgent European problem, Das Progressive Zentrum, with support of the German Federal Ministry of Family, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, organised an international roundtable, which took place on December 16, 2015 in Berlin.

In the past weeks, the think tank Das Progressive Zentrum has not just been thinking but also doing. And we have been doing an awful lot! We have been expanding and renovating our offices on Werftstraße, located in the heart of political Berlin and just a stone’s throw from the Federal Ministry of the Interior, from the Federal Chancellery, central station and Schloss Bellevue, official residence of the President of Germany.