Our conference, conceived in 2007 as a new forum to discuss global foreign and security policy issues, is intended to carry forward President Lennart Meri's legacy as a leading European statesman and foreign policy thinker and to ensure that Estonia continues to be seen as a country willing and able to play a proper part in the identification of solutions to Europe's problems. We have built on the success and reputation of the previous two conferences and attracted high level attendance from both practitioners and academics, linked by their interest in the evolving nature of European security.
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves is the patron of the conference. He hosted and spoke at the event. The conference is jointly organised by the International Centre for Defence Studies – a Tallinn-based think tank for the analysis of security and defence policy questions – and the Lennart Meri European Foundation.
The conference began in the late afternoon on 29 March. This was both Lennart Meri's birthday (2009 would have been his 80th) and the day on which in 2004 Estonia achieved one of his most cherished foreign policy ambitions: the entry into NATO of Estonia and six other Central and East European states. It ended at lunch-time on 31 March.