https://matjazgruden.eu/ Columns and speeches by Matjaž Gruden on democracy, Europe and Slovenia. en Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000 https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2026/caux-democracy-forum.html https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2026/caux-democracy-forum.html Mon, 22 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000 I'd like to start by congratulating and thanking the young artist for beautiful music. One of the things we believe in, in our work on democracy, is that… https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2026/libraries-culture-and-democracy.html https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2026/libraries-culture-and-democracy.html Mon, 15 Jun 2026 08:00:00 +0000 You already introduced me with my function, and I think I probably have one of the most pretentious titles in the European institutional architecture… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/three-days-on-a-desert-island-without-snuff.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/three-days-on-a-desert-island-without-snuff.html Sun, 01 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000 A friend and colleague of my father’s, a legendary Dnevnik photojournalist, when asked in the 1970s what it had been like in the Partisans, replied that it had… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/the-world-rests-on-the-young.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/the-world-rests-on-the-young.html Sun, 01 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000 In Spain’s Asturias, time runs more slowly. Even if you want to have a glass or two in company, you will need a few hours if you stick to local customs. In… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/the-french-presidential-race-after-the-local-elections.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/the-french-presidential-race-after-the-local-elections.html Sun, 01 Mar 2026 08:00:00 +0000 Arcis-sur-Aube, a small rural town of fewer than three thousand inhabitants, a good two hours’ drive east of Paris, was until recently known mainly as the site… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/whoever-doesnt-sit-isnt-slovenian.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/whoever-doesnt-sit-isnt-slovenian.html Sun, 01 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000 Melania Trump reminds me of the Bosnian joke about Mujo sitting on a rock. “What’s up, Mujo, sitting and thinking?” “Nah, Haso, just sitting.” https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/the-persecution-of-the-differently-differently-differently-minded.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/the-persecution-of-the-differently-differently-differently-minded.html Sun, 01 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000 “The differently minded” was the label adopted years ago by the pioneers of the Slovenian fight against wokeness. The nom de guerre of brave souls who began to… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/artificially-intelligent-traditional-values.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/artificially-intelligent-traditional-values.html Sun, 01 Feb 2026 08:00:00 +0000 If you have been wandering around our corners of the world’s social media lately, you have probably come across artificially intelligent graphic depictions of… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/the-emperors-crazy-clothes.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/the-emperors-crazy-clothes.html Thu, 01 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000 Almost exactly ten years ago, on January 23, 2016, Donald Trump said at a campaign rally in Sioux Center, Iowa, that he could stand in the middle of Fifth… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/sympathy-for-the-devil.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/sympathy-for-the-devil.html Thu, 01 Jan 2026 08:00:00 +0000 The recent American intervention in Venezuela, in which the country’s president and his wife were captured, caught most of the world’s politicians on the wrong… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/making-europe-small-again.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/making-europe-small-again.html Tue, 16 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000 I ask the copy editors and the editor-in-chief to make an exception for once and not translate the headline into Slovenian. It is a deliberate use of a foreign… https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/human-rights-education-forum.html https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/human-rights-education-forum.html Tue, 09 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000 Thank you very much, Ida, and good morning, everybody. Welcome to the Council of Europe Youth Center in Budapest, the wildest place in town, where all… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/a-matter-for-debate.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/recent/a-matter-for-debate.html Mon, 01 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000 If authoritarian populists are Supermen—and evidently they and their supporters are convinced they are—then empathy and critical thinking are their kryptonite.… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/the-mightiest-adolf.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/the-mightiest-adolf.html Mon, 01 Dec 2025 08:00:00 +0000 In Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstocking, the circus ringmaster solemnly announces the greatest wonder of all time: Mighty Adolf, the strongest man in the… https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/european-year-of-digital-citizenship-education.html https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/european-year-of-digital-citizenship-education.html Tue, 18 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000 Dear Minister, dear participants, There is only one thing better than a very, very well prepared and interesting conference, and that is a very, very well… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/on-tortoises-nutella-and-democracy.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/on-tortoises-nutella-and-democracy.html Mon, 17 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000 Democracy is fragile and delicate. The first one, the Athenian, was the hardiest: it lasted a good two hundred years, until it was brought down from within by… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/how-do-democracies-die.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/how-do-democracies-die.html Mon, 03 Nov 2025 08:00:00 +0000 A little over two years ago, I was invited to a conference in Washington where we discussed how to save liberal democracy. Speaking before me was Francis… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/only-real-slovenians.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/only-real-slovenians.html Mon, 20 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000 The weekend before last I spent in Istanbul. My friend Hakan had gathered just under a dozen people from different corners of the world to discuss trust and… https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/youth-event-new-democratic-pact.html https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/youth-event-new-democratic-pact.html Tue, 07 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000 First of all, thank you so much for being here, sincerely. It is important. I'm going to do my best to meet the high expectations about explaining the new… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/jamie-oliver-and-the-fight-against-disinformation.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/jamie-oliver-and-the-fight-against-disinformation.html Mon, 06 Oct 2025 08:00:00 +0000 Hybrid attacks, disinformation and foreign interference in democratic processes have become a constant of contemporary politics. At the recent meeting of the… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/balkan-style.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/balkan-style.html Mon, 22 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000 We live in a world that is changing fast—as a rule for the worse. One of the less obnoxious trends in this whirlwind is pop-culture phenomena that disappear… https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/democratic-resilience-to-disinformation.html https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/democratic-resilience-to-disinformation.html Wed, 17 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000 Thank you very much. Let me start by thanking the Maltese Presidency for this event, before I forget. I may do it again at the end, but they deserve all… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/a-hybrid-defense-of-democracy.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/a-hybrid-defense-of-democracy.html Mon, 08 Sep 2025 08:00:00 +0000 It is a fact that the European model of democracy is seriously threatened, including militarily, which is why we must strengthen our deterrent capabilities. It… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/memories-of-democracy.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/memories-of-democracy.html Mon, 25 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000 Toward the end of the school year, I was invited to the European School in Strasbourg for a discussion on “Transitions to Democracy,” organized by history… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/slovenia-against-genocide.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/slovenia-against-genocide.html Mon, 11 Aug 2025 08:00:00 +0000 I began my professional career more than thirty years ago in the then barely established Slovenian diplomatic service. I soon went to work for an international… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/gypsy-hunt.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/gypsy-hunt.html Mon, 28 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000 The title is deliberately provocative. The word cigan, “Gypsy,” is a slur that many still use for members of the Roma community. People who don’t call their… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/oh-what-a-concert.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/oh-what-a-concert.html Tue, 15 Jul 2025 08:00:00 +0000 My closest colleague is Jewish. Strasbourg has the second-largest Jewish community in France, after Paris. Today my colleague is afraid, for her safety and the… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/the-party-of-progress.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/the-party-of-progress.html Mon, 30 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000 In August 1972, the Danish lawyer and anti-tax crusader Mogens Glistrup founded a new political party, which he named Fremskridtspartiet, the Progress Party.… https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/schrodinger-s-genocide.html https://matjazgruden.eu/columns/2025/schrodinger-s-genocide.html Sat, 14 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000 For much of the Slovenian public, including the President of the Republic, what is unfolding before our eyes in Gaza is a genocide of the Palestinian… https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/global-forum-on-higher-education.html https://matjazgruden.eu/speeches/2025/global-forum-on-higher-education.html Tue, 03 Jun 2025 08:00:00 +0000 Villano has already extended the official thanks on behalf of the Council of Europe, so I could skip that part—but still, I want to once again thank our…