Sylvie Kauffmann, Editor in Chief of "Le Monde"

The European Union has a leadership problem. Meanwhile, some of its member States are absorbed by internal leadership problems of their own, often due to fragile governments. The challenge for these governments is to assert their authority, that is to rule without antagonizing citizens. That is what they need in order to move forward, to progress.

Leadership is about more than power and strength. It is also about moral authority, about defining objectives and obtaining results. Being a leader means setting an example and upholding values such as transparency and integrity. It also means sharing power with democratic institutions and respecting their independence, including that of the media.

Bianca Jagger, Council of Europe Goodwill Ambassador

It is vital that we set global standards of accountability, and put an end to the double standards that pervade the international system. Leadership is crucially needed for an effective international judicial mechanism to be put in place. It is time to end the culture of impunity that has plagued the developing world for so long, and for governments throughout the world to hold corporations and their management to account, and protect their citizens, and their natural resources. Recognition of certain acts as ‘crimes’ will give present and future generations a voice and, more importantly, actionable rights which they currently lack. The definition of a Crime Against Present and Future Generations asks that “Conduct which places the very survival of life at risk should be prohibited and prosecuted as an international crime.”

Michel Rocard, former Prime Minister of France
4^th Summer University for Democracy, 6 juillet2009, Strasbourg

"The real challenge concerning democracy is knowing whether, globally, it will be capable of dealing simultaneously with all contemporary problems. And democracy is only attractive when people are living under dictatorships. Just look at all the democracies in Eastern Europe which we have recently taken in. When they lived under dictatorships, the people of those nations showed great courage and a tremendous aspiration for democracy, for which they sometimes laid down their lives. Five years after independence, however, electoral turnout was already down by almost half. People are voting less and less but more and more for extremist parties, and democracy is giving the impression of being desperately ineffective. We also know that, compared with all other systems of government, democracy is characterised by slow decision-making, due to respect for our principles, which are taken into account in procedures. And this slowness itself usually undermines the effectiveness of the decisions."