The Freedom and Prosperity Center, the Atlantic Council’s newest center, had its public launch at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit on Thursday, June 9.

Dan Negrea, the Center’s Senior Director, and Matt Kroenig, Deputy Director of the Scowcroft Center, participated in a panel that discussed their report entitled “Do Countries Need Freedom to Achieve Prosperity?”  The other panelists were think tank heads in Mexico, Cameroon and India. Sergio Alcocer, President of the Mexican Council on Foreign Relations; Fri Asanga, CEO of the Denis and Lenora Feretia Foundatoin, and Lakshmi Sampath Goyal, CEO of the Centre for Civil Society.

The panel was introduced by Atlantic Council CEO Fred Kempe and Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Chairman of the Alliance of Democracies Foundation, and former Secretary General of NATO.  They expressed support for the work of the Center and for the idea that more freedom tends to lead to more prosperity.

The Copenhagen Democracy Summit had 800 in-person participants and was streamed live on social media.  Among the speakers at the Summit were former President Obama, Ukraine President Zelenskyy, President of European Parliament Roberta Metsola, Google President of Global Affairs Kent Walker, Microsoft President Brad Smith, and Google Chairman Eric Scmidt.

While in Copenhagen, Negrea and Kroenig also met in separate meetings at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs with Stephan Schonemann, Undersecretary for Development Policy, and Christina Markus Lassen, Undersecretary for Foreign Policy and newly appointed Ambassador to the United States. 

Denmark dedicates each year 0.7% of its GNI to development aid, among the top five largest in the world.  The purpose of the meetings was to introduce the Atlantic Council’s Freedom and Prosperity Indexes and the Center’s plans, and to explore joint activities in developing countries.  Both sides were interested in finding ways to work together.