"Life in the Time of Monsters" Program

Friday 21/8

21:00 – 23:30

PLENARY

OPENING PANEL: “Do Monsters Smell Flowers?”

Meyrem Almaci, Kumi Naidoo, Asad Rehman, Inga Rademacher, moderator: Vedran Horvat

The opening debate refers directly to title of this Academy and aims to identify the symptoms of the time we live in. It aima to paint the picture of the current moment marked by authoritarianism, democratic decline, obsession with indefinite growth, oppression, AI resurgence, violence, extractivism and climate collapse.

Meyrem Almaci, 1976, Belgian with Turkish roots, mother of two; lifelong fan of fantasy, anime, books and good music. Party Leader of Groen (‘14-‘22), member of Parliament since 2007. Believes in saving the planet and being a good ancestor for the future generations, whilst also having fun and enjoying life as much as possible. So: Don’t curse the darkness, light a candle.

Kumi Naidoo is a South African human rights and environmental justice activist, who is currently the President of the Fossil Fuel Treaty Initiative. He is the former Secretary-General of Amnesty International (2018-2020) and the first person from the Global South to lead Greenpeace International (2009-2015). He is an advisor for the Community Arts Network. He serves as a global ambassador for Africans Rising for Unity, Justice, Peace and Dignity. His family started the Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism to build on the positive legacies left by popular South African rapper Rikhado “Riky Rick” Makhado through his music and life’s work. Through this Foundation, he co-founded the Global Artivism Initiative. Kumi is also the author of award-winning Letters To My Mother: The Makings of a Troublemaker and the host of the podcast Power, People and Planet.

Asad Rehman previously worked at Friends of the Earth for 11 years and was the head of international climate campaigning until 2017. He then took on the role of Executive Director at War on Want until he returned to Friends of the Earth in 2025. He’s also previously held positions with Friends of the Earth International and Amnesty International UK. Asad has nearly 4 decades of experience in campaigning for environmental, social and racial justice, with a deep understanding of how these struggles are inextricably linked.

Inga Rademacher is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Political Economy at City St. George’s, University of London with a PhD from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne. She studies central banks, finance and fiscal policy focusing on tensions between democracy and capitalism. She has held previous positions at Goldsmiths, University of London and King’s College, London and is currently the co-director of CITYPERC, a research cluster dealing with political economy issues at City.

Saturday 22/8

10:00 – 11:30

PLENARY

KEYNOTE: Asad Rehman

Climate Justice, Class Power and the Fight for our Future

Asad Rehman is the chief executive of Friends of the Earth (England, Wales and Northern Ireland). He took up the role in August 2025, having previously spent 11 years at the organisation as Head of International Climate. Before returning to Friends of the Earth, he served as Executive Director of the anti-poverty and social justice charity War on Want.

Over nearly four decades, Asad Rehman has been one of the UK’s leading movement organisers, working at the intersection of climate justice, economic inequality, human rights, peace and anti-racism. Throughout his career, he has played a significant role in helping to build and strengthen some of the largest social movements in the UK and globally. His work has spanned the anti-racist movement, the anti-globalisation movement and Social Forum processes, the Stop the War Coalition, and, more recently, the global climate justice movement. Across these movements, he has worked to forge alliances between trade unions, community organisations, faith groups, environmental organisations and movements to advance systemic social change.

As chief executive of Friends of the Earth, Asad is leading the organisation’s work to build a broad-based environmental justice movement capable of addressing the interconnected crises of climate change, nature loss and inequality by building the power of communities to organise collectively to challenge the power of elites and the far right.

Saturday 22/8

11:30 – 13:30

PARALLEL SESSIONS

CITIES BEYOND GROWTH: Introduction

GEF TALKS: Inga Rademacher

Finance and the Far Right

The fascist and Nazi regimes of the interwar period developed their economic programmes in response to profound transformations in financial markets. In this lecture, Dr Inga Rademacher explores whether the contemporary far right likewise responds to financial-market developments as well as how it envisions the future of financial markets.

Dr Inga Rademacher is a Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in International Political Economy at City St. George’s, University of London with a PhD from the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, Cologne. She studies central banks, finance and fiscal policy focusing on tensions between democracy and capitalism. She has held previous positions at Goldsmiths, University of London and King’s College, London and is currently the co-director of CITYPERC, a research cluster dealing with political economy issues at City.

WORKSHOP: Democratising Ownership: From Principles to Building a Support Ecosystem

Maša Petrovič, Klara Žerak, Miloš Kovačević, Stefan Marić, Andrej Pavićević

In the first part of the panel, we discuss two policies that differently envision the
democratization of the means of production. One is economic democracy, in which workers own the companies for which they work, and another is coupon capitalism, in which all citizens participate in capital ownership regardless of their employment status. We will show how these proposals can fruitfully be combined to allow options for people with different levels of risk tolerance and preferences regarding workplace governance, as well as to prevent the concentration of capital down the line.

Building on these foundations, we will introduce the European ESOP (euroESOP) or sloESOP, an innovative model for broad-based employee ownership and show how it adapts classic employee buyout structures to the European cooperative framework. We will focus on its key features, explaining how it gives employees low risk co-ownership while preserving local jobs and business continuity.

We then turn to the feasibility of expanding employee ownership in the current antiegalitarian climate. We will look for potential entry points and pragmatic pathways for leveraged employee buyouts of companies that can appeal to a broader range of stakeholders, focusing on reasons for worker ownership beyond economic justice. In particular, we will explore how the growing retirement of business owners across Europe is creating an unprecedented succession challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises, threatening business continuity, jobs, and local economies. Drawing on international experience, we will show how employee ownership can provide a practical succession solution that preserves businesses, retains wealth within local communities, and advances economic democracy.

The Slovenian experience offers a concrete illustration of how this shift can be institutionalized. Last year, Slovenia adopted the Employee-Ownership Cooperative Act, establishing a new legal framework that enables employees to become owners of the companies in which they work. Its adoption was the result of years of strategic planning and collaboration among a wide range of stakeholders. However, passing the law was only the first step. For the reform to achieve its intended impact, the gap between legislation and practice must now be bridged through effective implementation.

In the last part of the panel, we will draw on the experience of solastnik.si – a Slovenian initiative – to present what a functioning support ecosystem looks like in practice. By providing structured advisory support guiding owners, management and employees through the transition process; financial instruments and cohesion policy funding that make buyouts financially accessible; and targeted awareness-raising tailored to different audiences, because reaching a retiring business owner requires a fundamentally different conversation than engaging a works council or a policy maker. Together, these pillars bridge the gap between an adopted law and its use in practice.

Maša Petrovič, IED. After earning her Bachelor’s degree in Communication Studies, Maša Petrovič decided to pursue a Master’s degree in Human Resources Management to delve deeper into the field of employee management and gain a better understanding of organizational processes and relationships. During her master’s studies, she developed a strong interest in economic democracy and employee ownership, particularly because of their positive impact on companies and society. Today, she is a part of a team at IED that advises business owners and raises public awareness of the benefits of employee ownership. She is a project manager at IED’s business incubator called solastnik.si, which is supporting companies that are considering, transitioning to, or already operating under employee ownership in building a strong and sustainable ownership culture.

Klara Žerak, IED. Klara Žerak is completing her master’s degree in Sociology at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana, with only her master’s thesis remaining. In 2023, she graduated in Cultural Studies and worked in the cultural sector during her undergraduate studies. She is now focusing on broader sociological issues in her academic journey, with the aim of actively contributing to building a better and fairer society, which is why she joined the Institute for Economic Democracy. At the Institute, she is part of the non-profit team, where she is primarily responsible for managing non-profit projects and identifying funding opportunities. She is currently employed within the MAG-NET project, an EU-supported urban initiative that connects local institutions, businesses, organisations and residents in developing innovative solutions for sustainable urban development, a stronger local community and a higher quality of life in the Municipality of Celje.

Miloš Kovačević, IEDS. Miloš Kovačević is a research associate at the Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade, and co-founder of the Institute for Economic Democracy Serbia (IEDS). In 2024/2025, he was a visiting fellow at the Regional Network of Centers for Advanced Studies of Southeast Europe, conducting the research project “Advancing Economic Democracy in Southeast Europe: A Comparative Study of ESOP Models in Slovenia and Serbia.” Since 2024, he has been involved with IEDS, where he is currently working on the research project “Brain drain and economic democracy: exploring the potential of worker ownership to reduce youth emigration,” funded by the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. His latest paper, co-authored with Andrej Pavićević and Stefan Marić, “Countering Economic Injustice Through Property-Owning Democracy,” was published this year in the journal Philosophy and Society. He also attended the Green Academy in 2018 and 2020, and led a self-organized session on the local doughnut model with Predrag Momčilović in 2022.

Stefan Marić, IEDS. Stefan Marić is an economic researcher and co-founder of the Institute for Economic Democracy Serbia (IEDS). Previously, he conducted research for several NGOs in Serbia, including the Initiative for Economic and Social Rights – A11 and the Trag Foundation, on topics concerning economic inequality, poverty, social welfare, minority rights, and inflation, among others. He also completed an internship and later worked on a project with the Social Inclusion and Poverty Reduction Unit (SIPRU). He is a contributing author to several Serbian and regional publications, including Mašina, Bilten, Slobodni Filozofski, and Evrensel. Most recently, he was a co-author of a case study on Iteratec, one of the pioneers of employee ownership in Germany. He is a member of the Alumni network of FES’s Future of Economy Programme and Heartefact’s Human Rights Leadership Programme.

Andrej Pavićević, IEDS. Andrej Pavićević is director and co-founder of the Institute for Economic Democracy Serbia (IEDS) and executive editor of Impakter magazine, a global publication on sustainable development. As a researcher, he co-authored the paper, “Countering Economic Injustice Through Property-Owning Democracy,” published in 2026 in the journal Philosophy and Society. He is currently conducting the research project, “Brain drain and economic democracy: exploring the potential of worker ownership to reduce youth emigration,” and co-authoring a publication introducing leading employee ownership models to Serbian audiences. Throughout his editorial career, he has edited, published, and/or interviewed numerous distinguished global figures, including Nobel Laureates, heads of international institutions, senior UN officials, and policymakers from around the world. He has facilitated and managed dozens of high-profile media campaigns and editorial series in partnership with international organizations like the WWF, UNDP, FAO, UN Women, IEP, IISD, C40, Heifer, and ICLEI, among others. Beyond Impakter, his work has been published in Vreme, Radar, Nova, and Faust Kultur. Pavićević is also active in social advocacy through film and photography. He led two initiatives aimed at strengthening the social inclusion of Roma communities in Serbia through photography and is co-writer and co-producer of the documentary film Osmica. The film won first place in the Serbian Film Center’s national competition, received support from the Macedonian Film Center, and was selected for the prestigious development workshops EURODOC, Ex Oriente, and the East Doc Platform, where it received the DocsBarcelona Award.

Sören Altstaedt

Limits to Growth

The lecture revisits the heated controversies that erupted following the publication of the Limits to Growth report in 1972. Commissioned by the Club of Rome and crafted by a group of MIT scientists, the report documented the results of the first computer simulation of human interaction with the global environment. Using a novel modelling technique called System Dynamics, MIT scientists projected that if the exponential growth of the global population and industries continued unchecked, the world system would face a socio-ecological collapse in the 21st century.

The Limits to Growth debates have often been painted as a clash between two ideological camps: pessimistic neo-Malthusians versus optimistic techno-utopians. However, previously unexplored archival material from MIT reveals a deeper, decade-long methodological struggle between MIT’s System Dynamics Group and econometricians over the validity of their respective modelling practices. This earlier scientific conflict shaped the battle lines of the 1970s debates: assuming the popular position of “economists”, critics of the report largely favoured econometric modelling, while its defenders, often identifying as “ecologists”, resonated with System Dynamics’ holistic approach. Thus, the Limits to Growth controversies pertained not only to the normative question of what the future will look like but also, to a significant degree, to the epistemological and methodological question of how to imagine it – how to give it form through specific models. Our current perceptions of what the future actually is, what actions to take, and what goals to seek, have been forged in this clash of futures that marked the 1970s.

Sören Altstaedt‘s research interests revolve around the social dimensions of climate change, sustainability and energy transitions. His particular take on these issues is informed by the sociology of knowledge and cultural sociology.

KOOPERATIVA MODULE

Solidarity in Action: Supporting AKC Gnezdo, Kruševac

AKC Gnezdo is an independent cultural centre in Kruševac, Serbia, run by Fakiri s juga, a member organisation of Kooperativa. The centre is currently facing the loss of its space, as the City may not renew its lease next year in order to open a commercial venue on the same location. Gnezdo’s situation serves as a litmus test for the broader state of civil society in Serbia and the SIE, where independent cultural spaces are increasingly squeezed by political pressure, declining public investment, and the commercialisation of public space.

Facilitated by: Kaća Dimitrijević (AKC Gnezdo / Fakiri s juga, Kruševac) and Luka Knežević-Strika (ICSS, Belgrade)

Saturday 22/8

16:30 – 18:00

PARALLEL SESSIONS

Green Perspectives on Housing

Gordan Bosanac, Iva Ivšić, Natalija Stojmenović, Marin Živković, moderator: Florent Marcellesi

The housing crisis is not only a national issue, it is a European crisis. Across Europe we can observe the same systemic challenges: rising housing costs, increase of real estate prices, difficulty for young people to access their first home, displacement of residents from tourist centres, financialisation and speculation in housing, etc. This crisis is accompanied by a serious crisis of inequality between the most affected sections of the population (generally lower and middle classes, youth, migrants, single mothers, etc.), who find it difficult, if not impossible, to access housing, especially quality housing, and sections of the population who are more affluent and able to find housing in protected and comfortable neighbourhoods. The housing crisis is a vicious cycle where inequalities are made worse by the crisis and, vice versa, the crisis is made worse by inequalities.

At the same time, the ecological crisis continues unabated. Although Trumpian denialism and the right wing have gained ground in recent years, while the ecological backlash is dragging many policies in the opposite direction from a just and ecological transition, climate change is intensifying and causing the worsening of living conditions, for example through energy poverty. Indeed, the most vulnerable groups in society are also — due to the houses they live in and neighborhoods where they reside — the most exposed to extreme weather conditions such as hot summers, cold winters, floods, etc. In fact, buildings are responsible for approximately 36% of CO2 emissions and 40% of total energy consumption in the EU, representing 35% of energy-related EU emissions in 2021. Moreover, the sector is responsible for over 35% of the EU’s total waste. All of that highlights its substantial environmental footprint, as well as its link with excessive consumption and growth dependency.

Thus, considering housing as a common good and human right, it is essential to address the issue of housing in a cross-cutting manner.

Gordan Bosanac is a member of Možemo political party and Member of European Parliament from Greens/EFA group. He is active in the fields of affordable housing, regional development, green transition, social and human rights. He also covers EU Western Balkans enlargement policies.

Iva Ivšić is a political activist with the Možemo! political party and a co-Coordinator of Zagreb party branch. In the Zagreb City Assembly, she is the president of the left-green group. She is a co-founder of the Organization for Workers’ Initiative and Democratization, which supports workers in organizing and advocating for their rights and former president of the Assembly in Cooperative for ethical financing. Professionally, she works at the Trade Union of Education, Media and Culture. Her areas of interest include workers’ rights, economic democracy, social and care policy, cooperatives and progressive local governance.

Natalija Stojmenović is a Member of the National Assembly of the Republic of Serbia and a member of the Presidency of the Green-Left Front (Zeleno-levi front). She also serves as the head of the Green-Left Front parliamentary group in the Belgrade City Assembly. Originally from Vranje in southern Serbia, she holds a degree in Political Science. Her political work focuses on social justice, workers’ rights, environmental protection, urban development, transparent governance, and strengthening democratic institutions. In parliament and local government, she has been particularly engaged in issues related to labor rights, public services, housing, healthcare, and sustainable development.

Marin Živković is a political scientist and a Member of the Croatian Parliament from the Možemo! party, with professional experience in the youth sector, public administration and trade unions. His political work focuses particularly on housing policy, workers’ rights and public policies aimed at reducing social inequalities. He was also a member of the Zagreb City Assembly, where he contributed to the development of Zagreb’s policies on affordable housing.

Florent Marcellesi is a former MEP (Greens/EFA) and the former co-chair of the Spanish Green party Verdes Equo. He is a political ecology researcher and activist, a member of the editorial council of the magazine Ecología política, and a member of the think tank Ecopolítica. He is the author of several books on political ecology, post-growth, energy issues, and ecological and just transition. He is also a specialist and lecturer in international cooperation (University of the Basque Country, Bilbao).

WORKSHOP: Low Toxic Printmaking

Anđela Rončević

Through this lecture and workshop, my goal is to introduce participants to an environmentally and socio-politically conscious approach to artistic creation. Knowing that the audience comes with very different backgrounds and interests, my intention is not to go into technical details, but rather to present a line of research that can be translated and applied in various fields.

In the so-called traditional approach to printmaking, which is taught at art academies and in graphic workshops around the world, we encounter various chemical processes and substances that are extremely harmful to both human health and the environment. Upon entering a printmaking studio, one is greeted by the smell of gasoline-based solvents, asphalt varnish, and evaporating nitric acid, and many artists romanticize these smells, considering them a sign of a true, traditional workshop.

Fortunately, in the last 20 or so years, individuals and communities have begun to emerge that strive for less harmful, more environmentally friendly methods. In such workshops, the further past is often looked to for forgotten methods (e.g., using soy sauce to degrease metal) that were pushed aside by the industrialization era. Printing is based on mining due to the need for copper, zinc, and aluminum, so it can never be completely environmentally friendly and harmless. All the more, it is essential to emphasize that the materials in this art come from the hands of adults and children whose human rights are often completely disregarded.

The drive for low-impact processes that result in equally valuable works of art is growing today within communities of artists who collectively question, explore, and emphasize the multifaceted nature of responsibility in workshops as spaces for artistic creation. It’s very interesting that some low-toxicity substances are readily available on our coast, and on Vis as well; for example, lavender essential oil, resin, lemons, etc.

In the workshop, participants will have the opportunity to get acquainted with the versatile material of the tetrapak and its possibilities. Through this upcycling printmaking method, participants will have the opportunity to create their own smaller-format print, get their hands inky, pull a print through a small press, and perhaps encounter printmaking for the very first time.

TNI WORKSHOP: Security for Whom? Confronting EU Militarization

Josephine Solanki

The EU’s turn toward militarisation is accelerating. The 2026 budget includes at least €2.8 billion for “security and defence”, an increase of almost 7% compared to 2025. On top of this sits the off-budget European Peace Facility. Looking ahead, the proposed 2028–2034 budget would allocate €131 billion to arms and militarised space, around five times more than in the previous budget cycle. And it’s not just about the money: The EU is opening existing civilian and regional funds to military spending and stripping away oversight and restrictions on the arms industry.

NATO-Chief Mark Rutte openly admitted in 2025: “spending more on defence means spending less on other priorities”, before calling for money to be diverted from “pensions, health and social security systems” toward military priorities. But more military spending will not solve the social, economic, ecological, and political crises facing Europe.

What are the consequences of this massive increase in military spending at EU (and national) levels, and how can we join forces across different movements to confront it?

Josephine Solanki is a project officer with TNI’s War and Pacification programme. She holds an MA degree with distinction in Development Studies from the International Institute of Social Studies and a BA degree in Philosophy and Economics.

Mladen Domazet

Together Leaving this Site of Shame and Misery: Degrowth Arc of the Croatian left

“Why do we keep losing the same argument, and what can we learn from those who fought it before us?”

Why is it so difficult to include limits into visions of progress, even today? How come we can collectively discuss non-existent technological fixes and not degrowth transformation plans? Why do environmental movements keep finding themselves trapped between promises of development and ecological necessity?

This talk skips along a historical arc within the Yugoslavian and Croatian left that feels surprisingly contemporary. Long before today’s debates on green growth, AI, critical raw materials, or degrowth, writers, philosophers, and activists were already grappling with the same questions: What counts as progress? Can technology replace environmental services? Who benefits from development, and who pays the ecological price?

Beginning with the interwar writer and revolutionary August Cesarec, and continuing through the environmental philosophy of Rudi Supek and the political activism of Dušan Plut, the lecture follows a tradition that challenged the assumption that human liberation requires ever-expanding production and consumption. Instead, these thinkers explored a different possibility: that freedom, justice, and a decent life might depend on recognising ecological limits rather than escaping them. Whilst not historically unique, this was counter-hegemonic thinking distinctive of the backwards Balkans.

At the centre of the story is an extraordinary political conflict from the 1980s. While official development plans promised prosperity through growth, automation, and technological advancement, a group of young Slovenian environmentalists argued that this path would merely shift environmental costs onto poorer communities and future generations. They responded with what today would be recognised as an early ecosocialist and degrowth-inspired counterplan. And Dušan Plut publicly resigned the Party over its growth-fetishism.

This is not a lecture about forgotten intellectual history for its own sake. It is about why old arguments suddenly look new again. Questions that seemed settled—about growth, planning, technology, nature, and democracy—have returned to politics with renewed urgency. Revisiting these debates reveals that many of today’s supposed dilemmas were already confronted by earlier generations, often with greater imagination and political ambition than we remember.

If environmental politics today is searching for ways to combine ecological limits, social justice, and democratic decision-making, then this history offers more than a lesson from the past. It offers a set of ideas that may help us think more clearly about the future.

WORKSHOP

Nikolina Silla

In-between: Embodied Inquiry through Physical Theatre, Movement and Collective Improvisation

Ideas change the world. But before they become action, they first reshape the way we inhabit our bodies, our relationships and the space between us.
Conceived as a physical counterpart to Green Academy’s conversations, this workshop explores how transformation is lived before it is understood. Through physical theatre, movement and improvisation, participants experience uncertainty not as a void, but as a space in-between where attention deepens, relationships shift, and new possibilities begin to emerge.

Nikolina Silla is an interdisciplinary artist working at the intersection of visual art, performance, and documentary film. Born in Zagreb and based in Turin, she studied Applied Arts and Photography, as well as Communication Science, before undertaking further artistic research at the Performing Arts University of Turin (PAUT), where she trained in physical theatre and directing. The training she received in theatre was influenced by the work of Stanislavski, Grotowski and Lecoq, and she has taken part in workshops led by artists such as Michele De Mauro, Ognjen Vučinić and Yoko Higashi. Between 2013 and 2018, she co-founded the Turin-based artistic platform CO.H and collaborated with it, contributing to interdisciplinary theatre projects. Alongside a variety of cultural collaborations, she has exhibited her work at art exhibitions and initiatives in Italy and Croatia.

WORKSHOP

Jules NeSmith

Exploring the Foundational Elements of Climate Resilience using a Visual Participatory Methodology

5-8 different people per session

Location: Hotel mezzanine terrace

Climate adaptation, environmental governance, social participation, and public trust are becoming increasingly interconnected—and contested. As concepts like resilience gain widespread use across disciplines and decision-making contexts, they are often invoked by stakeholders with varying priorities and operational meanings, while being engaged by diverse populations with different baseline experiences and conceptual interpretations. Understanding the diversity of perspectives is essential for designing effective, inclusive, and enduring climate initiatives.

This participatory session invites attendees to explore what climate resilience means in their own contexts using Community Concept Drawing (CCD), a facilitated methodology that combines visual expression with group dialogue. In contrast with surveys and other conventional engagement approaches, CCD reveals the assumptions, values, priorities, and lived experiences that shape how a concept is understood and exemplified. The process also helps identify areas of alignment and tension between local and community knowledge, scientific expertise, institutional frameworks, and policy aspirations and capacity. In elevating these diverse understandings, the session aims to deepen collective reflection on the foundational elements of climate resilience and highlight how place-based knowledge and scientific and institutional approaches are complementary. Participants will contribute to a richer, more inclusive understanding of resilience that can strengthen climate adaptation and environmental governance in practice.

Jules (Julienne E.) NeSmith is an interdisciplinary scientist and research coordinator with more than a decade of research collaboration and management experience in the United States and Africa. Currently based in the University of Florida’s Department of Environmental and Global Health, she supports research at the intersection of mental and public health, One Health, food systems, climate change, natural resources, and geopolitical obstacles with a particular focus on how these interconnecting systems shape human wellbeing. Her work combines field research, data science, project management, and cross-cultural collaboration to address complex challenges related to healthy equity, ecological integrity, and community resilience. Jules holds an M.S. in Interdisciplinary Ecology from the University of Florida with specialties in Agricultural and Natural Resource Law, Sustainable Development Practice, Wildlife Ecology, and Forest Resources Conservation.

Saturday 22/8

18:00 – 19:30

PARALLEL SESSIONS

CITIES BEYOND GROWTH

Practices and cases: Javor Benedek, Jagoda Munić, Suzana Jašić

Benedek Jávor is a Hungarian biologist, environmentalist and green politician. Jávor was a leading NGO activist in the 2000s and a green Member of the Hungarian Parliament (2010-2014), chair of its Sustainable Development Committee. Member of the European Parliament between 2014-2019 in the Greens/EFA group, first-vice chair of the Committee for Environment in the EP. Currently, he is the Head of the Representation of Budapest to the EU. He has 16 years of academic experience, he is the and author of more than 50 publications on a wide range of topics from theoretical ecology and environmental ethics to energy policy, rule of law and democracy issues.

Jagoda Munić is an environmental and sustainability expert with more than 25 years of experience in environmental policy, climate action, biodiversity protection and sustainable development. She currently serves as Assistant Head for Environmental Sustainability at the City of Zagreb, working on environmental, energy and climate policies relevant to the city’s green transition. Previously, she held senior leadership roles in the environmental movement, including President of Zelena akcija/Friends of the Earth Croatia, Director of Friends of the Earth Europe and Chairperson of Friends of the Earth International. She has extensive experience in developing and implementing environmental policies, leading advocacy campaigns and building cooperation among public institutions, civil society and international organisations. Jagoda holds degrees in Biology-Ecology and Library and Information Sciences from the University of Zagreb and completed postgraduate studies in Pollution and Environmental Control at the University of Manchester. She is also a European Climate Pact Ambassador for Croatia.

Suzana Jašić is a political scientist with more than 25 years of experience in working on media, electoral integrity, political transparency and the development of civil society. She was a co-founder and one of the leaders of GONG, Croatia’s leading democracy watchdog, and served two terms on the Programme Council of Croatian Radiotelevision (HRT). She entered local politics as an opposition councillor in Pazin in 2017 and, as a member of Možemo! (We Can!), Croatia’s green-left party, was elected Mayor of Pazin in 2021 and re-elected for a second term in 2025.

Vincent Liegey

Degrowth or Barbarism: Lessons from Hungary’s Authoritarian Laboratory

The collapse of our capitalist, productivist and growth-addicted civilization is no longer a distant scenario. It has already begun — exactly as degrowth thinkers have warned for decades. Ecological breakdown is accelerating through climate disruption, biodiversity collapse and the crossing of multiple planetary boundaries. At the same time, growing tensions around energy, materials and food supply chains — from geopolitical conflicts to the increasing instability around the Strait of Hormuz — reveal the deep fragility of globalized industrial systems. But this collapse is not only ecological or economic. It is also social, political, moral and intellectual. Inequalities continue to deepen between North and South, East and West, and within societies themselves. Democracy is weakening while far-right movements, authoritarianism and illiberal regimes expand across the world. Science is increasingly ignored, while disinformation, hatred and fake narratives spread through media ecosystems increasingly controlled by oligarchic interests. Education, culture, publishing and even academia are progressively captured by political and economic powers. France, among many others, offers worrying examples of this tendency. Hungary became an early laboratory for these dynamics during the 2010s under Viktor Orbán. The country experimented with forms of illiberal governance, nationalist rhetoric, media capture and authoritarian neoliberalism that later inspired broader international trends, including forms of Trumpism and reactionary politics elsewhere. Today, after Orbán’s fall, Hungary also offers a unique space for critical reflection on the limits, contradictions and possible futures emerging from this period. From the situated experience of Cargonomia — a degrowth-oriented cooperative working on food autonomy, low-tech, cargo bike logistics, community economies and conviviality, and also research and education — this participatory workshop proposes to collectively reflect on the links between ecological collapse, authoritarianism and the crises of modern industrial societies. The session will combine political analysis, lived experiences from Hungary. Together, we will explore how degrowth can move beyond critique to become a concrete democratic, social and cultural alternative to barbarism.

Vincent Liegey is an engineer, interdisciplinary researcher, author and lecturer on degrowth. He is a co-founder and coordinator of Cargonomia, a degrowth research and experimentation cooperative in Budapest combining agroecology, cargo-bike logistics, low-tech and community-based alternatives. He is co-author of Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide and Sobriété (la vraie), mode d’emploi, and co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Degrowth. His work explores democratic and convivial pathways towards societies based on social justice, autonomy and ecological sustainability.

Iva Vukušić

Justice And Accountability: Is International Law Failing to Prevent and Punish Atrocity Crimes?

The last few years, there has been a lot said and written about international law being in a “crisis”. Some have even proclaimed its death. Much critique of hypocrisy and double standards emerged in the aftermath of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the massive destruction and civilian suffering, which was unleashed on October 7th, and much of it continues to this day. Blatant violations of the UN Charter are becoming more common. Judges and prosecutors at international institutions such as the International Criminal Court (ICC) are under sanctions, and the courts themselves under severe pressure. This lecture will discuss two international courts in The Hague (the ICC and the International Court of Justice, the ICJ) dealing with atrocity crimes (genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes and aggression) and try to answer some of the questions being raised about the utility of judicial institutions in the face of mass violence. The lecture will diagnose key problems and identify some paths forward for accountability for international crimes.

Dr. Iva Vukušić is an Assistant Professor in International History at Utrecht University, and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. She studies mass violence and criminal accountability, especially international courts in The Hague. Iva spent a decade working in practice, as a researcher and analyst, at the Special War Crimes Department of the Prosecutor’s Office in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague. Her first book “Serbian Paramilitaries and the Breakup of Yugoslavia: State Connections and Patterns of Violence” was published in English and Croatian, and since, Iva has been providing analysis and advice to different stakeholders, such as the British Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, on accountability for crimes in Ukraine. She is a frequent contributor to public debates on war crimes and accountability, and has appeared on CNN and the BBC; in the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde, Liberation, Der Spiegel, de Volkskrant, NRC, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, etc. She is a commissioner of the Netherlands Helsinki Committee.

KOOPERATIVA MODULE

Antonia Majača

Subsistence, Abundance, Metabolic Commons – Feminist Political Ecology I

The module proposes the question how to redistribute the labor that sustains the living and uses this question to debates on sufficiency, abundance, and the commons into a single political problem.

We begin with a session on subsistence: Maria Mies and Veronika Bennholdt-Thomsen reframing “enough” as a question about production rather than consumption, Ariel Salleh’s accounting of meta-industrial labor and embodied debt, and Corinna Dengler’s argument that degrowth must shrink the monetized economy without dumping its functions into the unpaid household.

The second session moves from sufficiency to abundance. Following Robin Wall Kimmerer, we revisit the claim that scarcity is manufactured (Silvia Federici’s enclosure thesis sits at the root of this argument) and that collectively chosen limits are the condition of shared plenty.

The third session works through the metabolic commons: the matter and energy that has to keep moving through bodies, homes, and landscapes for life to continue, and the daily labor that keeps it moving. Zofia Łapniewska’s research on gendered governance in energy cooperatives, Cara Daggett’s analysis of petro-masculinity, and the regional struggles ground a closing question: what would it mean to organize the metabolism of a place for enough, rather than for growth? Bringing in regional examples and case studies by the participants are encouraged.

Suggested reading ( we will be reading together short excerpts I will prepare so no need to read anything in advance)

• Mies & Bennholdt-Thomsen, The Subsistence Perspective: Beyond the Globalised Economy — Zed Books, 1999 (German original Eine Kuh für Hillary, 1997).
• Ariel Salleh (ed.), Eco-Sufficiency and Global Justice: Women Write Political Ecology — Pluto Press, 2009. “Ecological Debt: Embodied Debt.”
• Corinna Dengler & Birte Strunk, “The Monetized Economy Versus Care and the Environment: Degrowth Perspectives On Reconciling an Antagonism” — Feminist Economics 24(3), 2018, pp. 160–183.
• Jason Hickel, “Degrowth: A Theory of Radical Abundance” — Real-World Economics Review, no. 87, 2019, pp. 54–68.
• Silvia Federici, Caliban and the Witch — Autonomedia, 2004.
• Robin Wall Kimmerer, The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World — Scribner, 2024 (expanded from her 2020 Emergence Magazine essay).
• Zofia Łapniewska, “Energy, Equality and Sustainability? European Electricity Cooperatives from a Gender Perspective” — Energy Research & Social Science 57, 2019, article 101247.
• Cara Daggett, “Petro-Masculinity: Fossil Fuels and Authoritarian Desire” — Millennium: Journal of International Studies 47(1), 2018, pp. 25–44.

Antonia Majača is a Research Fellow in the Department of Philosophy and Cultural Heritage at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy, where her research within the ERC-funded HealthXCross project examines microbiome technoscience through decolonial feminist and historical materialist analysis. She founded and coordinates the research cluster “Radical Epistemologies: Political Ecology and Transversal Praxis” at the NICHE Institute for Environmental Humanities, Ca’ Foscari. She was Principal Investigator of the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) artistic research project “The Incomputable,” from which this volume emerged. She has directed research, curatorial, discursive, and publishing projects for Documenta 14, the Venice Biennale, Berlin Biennale, and HKW Berlin.

Saturday 22/8

21:00 – 23:30

PLENARY

PANEL

Municipalism Today: Alive, But Not Kicking?

Ana Mendez, Matt Thompson, Danijela Dolenec, Natalija Stojmenović, moderator: Iva Ivšić

The intention of this panel is to revisit the current state of municipalism across Europe. During the last decade or so we’ve witnessed the emergence or surge of a variety of municipalist movements – from Spain, Italy, France to the UK, Croatia and Serbia. Parallel to that we could observe a growing body of academic work on new or radical municipalism in the last years. And while many goals of municipalism were or are being achieved through the work of political platforms close to municipalism, there is an impression that the municipalist agenda (and narratives) is less evident or more hidden. Our idea is to discuss they trajectory of key municipalist ideas (democratising local state, feminisation of politics, post-growth, public-common partnerships, etc) from theory and activism into policy-making and practice. The point of departure for this discussion is the thesis that explicit notions of municipalism as a carrier of these changes are more rarely found, but the political work on their implementation continues. We want to discuss to which extent the municipalist political project has succeeded and what are its key challenges? Is this dormant mode only a phase or a tactical position and whether and how can we continue working on implementing key municipalist ideas in the future?

Dr Matt Thompson is Lecturer in Urban Studies at the UCL Bartlett School of Planning, with research interests in critical urban theory, urban political economy, post-growth planning, and municipalism. Matt is the author of Reconstructing Public Housing: Liverpool’s Hidden History of Collective Alternatives (2020, Liverpool University Press) and is working on a new monograph provisionally entitled: Conjunctural Urbanisms: Mobilising Strategies for Post-Growth Statecraft.

Sunday 23/8

10:00 – 11:30

PLENARY

KEYNOTE: Morana Miljanović (online)

Collective capacity: Building relational power to act together

Morana Miljanovic educates, organises, writes, speaks, facilitates and sails toward collective liberation through transforming relationships and structures to center care and solidarity while upsetting the infrastructure of patriarchal modernity. She is currently active as a sailboat captain, sailing teacher, sea rescue activist, part of Palestine solidarity movement, novelist and poet, dancer and performer and grassroots organiser. She used to work as a human rights lawyer, researcher, and facilitator of digital security workshops.

Sunday 23/8

11:30 – 13:30

PARALLEL SESSIONS

CITIES BEYOND GROWTH: Imogen Hamilton Jones, Matt Thompson

Imogen Hamilton-Jones is an urban anthropologist and Policy Fellow at LSE Cities, London School of Economics. Her research centres on urban environmental politics and economic transitions in European cities. Previously, she was Research Fellow at the Centre for Urban Studies and lecturer in the Anthropology Department at the University of Amsterdam. Before that, she spent several years working in London urban policy; she is committed to research that shapes urban politics and policy in practice.

GEF TALKS: Florent Marcellesi

Greens In Government: A Participatory Session on Navigating Power and Anchoring the Transition

This interactive GEF Talk presents the framework and first insights of the Green European Foundation’s “Greens in Government” project. The project examines the institutional, organizational, and societal anchoring of Green participations in regional and national governments.

Designed as a participatory session, this workshop brings together research perspectives and political experiences to focus on:

– The modalities of entry, renewal, or exit of governments by the Greens;

– The institutional and human imprint they leave on public administration;

– Their ability to build trust, as well as long-term political and social legitimacy;

– The evolution of Green political identity, strategy, and internal dynamics under conditions of power;

– Their ability to adapt and navigate external conditions and major political, social, and cultural trends during different election cycles.

Participants will actively contribute to sharing practices and collective learning for Greens in power.

D-HUB WORKSHOP: Anti-Authoritarian Toolkit

Tin Gazivoda

Authoritarian leaders are evolving, borrowing strategies and tactics from one another to weaken democratic institutions, manipulate public opinion, and consolidate power. After two years of collecting insights from across the planet, D-Hub launched the Anti-authoritarian Toolkit (AATK / https://antiauthoritarian.com/). The AATK is conceived as a counterforce: it analyzes authoritarian tactics, exposes their vulnerabilities, and provides a selection of tested responses that have worked in diverse contexts around thematic areas. As our goal is to ensure that democracy defenders get access to those segments of the AATK that could be useful, the Green Academy provides a great setting to share and discuss this content in a left-green context. The workshop will start with a presentation of the AATK, focusing on the most intriguing tactics used by pro-democracy actors around the world (e.g. the ‘broccoli in the rice’ method from Brazil). We will have time for questions and discussion, followed by work in small groups formed based on participant profiles and interests.

Tin Gazivoda is the Development Director of the D-Hub. After completing his studies in California, Gazivoda came back to Croatia and for 18 years worked on the protection of human rights, civil society development and the overall democratization of the country. He was the Director of the Croatian Helsinki Committee for Human Rights for three years, the Head of the U.N. Human Rights Center for seven and then the Open Society Foundations Advisor for Croatia. Gazivoda moved to Barcelona in 2016, initially leading work on effective activism and new forms of democracy, while heading the Central and Eastern European team from 2019. Gazivoda graduated from Stanford University with a B.A. in international relations and an M.A. in international policy studies (1997). He also holds a PHD from the Faculty of Political Science of the University of Zagreb, where he defended the thesis “The Second Democratic Transition of Croatia: 1999-2000” (2012).

WORKSHOP

Dejan Vasilevski

Community Power through Energy Democracy: Youth, Local Action and Just Transition

At a time when democratic participation is under increasing pressure and the green transition is slowing down across Europe, an important question emerges: how can local communities reclaim their power and shape their own future? This session proposes one possible answer—by building community power through trust, cooperation, culture, public space and active citizenship.

Rather than approaching energy democracy solely as a technical or policy issue, the session argues that a just transition begins with strong, connected communities. Before talking about solar panels or energy communities, we need communities that know how to collaborate, make collective decisions and take responsibility for the places they share.

The session will present the methodology developed by Go Green through the project “Pedals and Stories”—a community-building model that brings together sustainable mobility, culture, education and environmental action as complementary tools for strengthening local democracy. Implemented in partnership with the Municipality of Prilep and the Primary School Risto Risteski-Richko, the project demonstrated how meaningful social impact can be achieved even with a modest budget through strong local partnerships.

Building on this case study, the session will explore how similar community-based approaches can contribute to energy democracy, citizen-led climate action and the development of local energy communities. Participants will exchange experiences, reflect on transferable practices and co-create ideas that can be adapted to their own cities and regions.

Flavia Osmani

Albania’s Flamingo Revolution

The Flamingo Revolution began in May 2026 as local resistance to luxury developments in Zvërnec and Sazan that threaten Albania’s protected coastal ecosystems. After private security attacked residents and activists, it grew into a national mobilisation under the slogan “Albania Is Not for Sale.” Its demands extend beyond stopping one project to defending public land, reversing laws that weaken protected areas, ending privileges for “strategic investors,” and confronting corruption and state capture.

Speaking as an activist with Lëvizja BASHKË (Movement TOGETHER), I will present how we understand this environmental conflict as part of a wider political-economic model that places private profit above people, nature and democratic participation. The session will explore how residents, environmental groups, activists and the diaspora organised through protests, decentralised actions and social media. It will examine the movement’s goals, internal challenges and lessons for green-left organising elsewhere.

I am Flavia Osmani, a 26-year-old computer vision engineer and political activist. My political engagement began during the 2018 student protests in Albania, starting with Lëvizja për Universitetin (Movement for the University) and continuing through Organizata Politike (Political Organization), where I was engaged in campaigns and political actions realted mainly to student and workers’ rights. Since its transition into Lëvizja Bashkë (Together Movement), I have continued my involvement as an active member of both the Coordination Council and the media team of LB.

KOOPERATIVA MODULE

Solidarity in Action: Supporting AKC Gnezdo, Kruševac

Facilitated by: Kaća Dimitrijević (AKC Gnezdo / Fakiri s juga, Kruševac) and Luka Knežević-Strika (ICSS, Belgrade)

Sunday 23/8

16:30 – 18:00

PARALLEL SESSIONS

WORKSHOP

Sandra Benčić

Green Industrialisation

This session will use the example of Croatia and political work/vision of the green-left party Možemo to explore avenues of development of green industrial policy. It will be based on current context of transition to Clean Industrial Deal at the EU level and present ideas for green industrialisation developed in Možemo to support calibrating and designing industrial policy toward environmental and social wellbeing, delving into opportunities to develop industries that are mutually supportive, more democratic, not harmful for nature and in line with economic democracy and support to local businesses and needs of local communities.

WORKSHOP: Low Toxic Printmaking

Anđela Rončević

Vedran Horvat and Jagoda Munić

GreenPaths Vision 2050

We will present a part of the work in the HE GreenPaths project (www.greenpaths.info) through an academic poster that presents the desirable pathways for green transition towards 2050. The poster is the result of a participative visioning process that brings together key insights, debates, and conclusions from a collaborative workshop held this year in Croatia with scholars, researchers, practitioners and activists from around Europe. After presenting the poster, we will discussi and reflect on the results and work in smaller groups around the key components of the poster.

WORKSHOP

Counter-power: Legal Fight

Daša Vrzić

Law can look like a slow, heavy machine of bureaucracy – but sometimes it becomes a weapon against bureaucracy itself. This workshop asks whether the legal system, with all its rules, deadlines, and procedures, can be turned against those who normally use it to maintain the status quo. Through a case study of strategic environmental litigation, participants will explore together how national law, EU law, and international human rights instruments can be combined into a coherent legal strategy of resistance. The workshop is interactive: in small groups, participants will build their own legal strategies based on real and hypothetical scenarios, testing the limits and possibilities of law as a tool for change.

Daša Vrzić is a Zagreb-based lawyer who concluded that real action happens in the courtroom, not on the barricades – so she decided to combine both. She has run her own law firm since 2020, handling everything from intellectual property to real estate disputes, and since 2024 has also represented the City of Zagreb, a somewhat schizophrenic position for someone used to standing on the other side of the powerful. As a standing arbitrator for .hr domain disputes at CARNET, she has resolved more fights over internet addresses than she’d ever admit at a party, and as a lecturer in legal modules and a repeat member of election committees, she’s learned that bureaucracy, like nature, has its own slow but unstoppable rhythm. She firmly believes that even the most rusted legal system – with enough stubbornness and a well-drafted submission – can be turned in favor of those without an army of lawyers.

S-OIL WORKSHOP

Daniel Chavez, Kumi Naidoo, Donna Andrews

Green Industrial Policy and Oil and Gas Phaseout

Industrial policy remains peripheral to debates on fossil fuel phase-outs, yet it is central to understanding whether transitions deepen or disrupt patterns of extraction and accumulation. Whether the transition reinforces or breaks extractive accumulation depends fundamentally on how states shape productive capacity, control ownership, and direct production. This panel, drawing on research findings from the ERC-funded S-OIL project and the Horizon Europe GreenPaths project, treats industrial policy as contested terrain on which ecosocialist alternatives become possible or impossible.

Across Europe and the Global South, industrial policy has tended to reproduce inequalities. Ownership of renewable energy sectors is concentrated in the hands of transnational capital. Manufacturing capacity serves profit rather than needs. Debt obligations constrain state autonomy.

Yet industrial policy also offers opportunities for transformation. Democratic control over productive capacity, worker governance, and production oriented towards meeting needs rather than accumulation reshape the political economy of transition. In the Global South, particularly among oil-exporting countries, industrial policy should be linked to reparations for extraction, debt-free development, and the building of sovereign technological capacity. In Europe, it requires confronting territorial inequality and ensuring working-class interests shape the transition’s direction.

The First Conference on Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels, held in Santa Marta, Colombia, exposed the inadequacy of rhetorical commitments divorced from material mechanisms. Industrial policy frameworks anchored in transformed ownership relations, differentiated obligations, and democratic control become the stakes. This panel examines cases where industrial policy intersects with fossil fuel exit, asking which transformations serve which interests and whose labour sustains them.

Donna Andrews is a South African political economist and feminist theorist. She is a Senior Researcher at The Ethics Lab, Neuroscience Institute, University of Cape Town, currently researching the meanings of solidarity. Convenor of RWA Feminist Schools (2013-2019) and a former Research Associate at the University of Johannesburg (2020-2023). She holds an MA in International Political Economy and Development (ISS, Institute of Social Studies, The Hague) and a PhD in Political Theory from the University of Cape Town.

Daniel Chavez, a Uruguayan political economist, is an Ikerbasque Distinguished Professor at the University of the Basque Country (UPV-EHU). He is an associate of the Transnational Institute (TNI) in Amsterdam and Principal Investigator of the ERC Advanced Grant project S-OIL, which investigates the future of petroleum-dependent countries in the Global South.

WORKSHOP

Jules NeSmith

Exploring the Foundational Elements of Climate Resilience using a Visual Participatory Methodology

5-8 different people per session

Location: Hotel mezzanine terrace

Sunday 23/8

18:00 – 19:30

PARALLEL SESSIONS

CITIES BEYOND GROWTH

Practices and cases: Tomislav Medak, Dušica Radojčić

Tomislav Medak is a researcher with a PhD on technopolitics and planetary environmental crisis. Together with Valeria Graziano and Marcell Mars, he initiated the Pirate Care project and co-authored Pirate Care: Acts against the Criminalization of Care (Pluto Press 2025). He is a policy coordinator in the green-left party Možemo! and the representative in City Assembly of Zagreb.

Dušica Radojčić: Degree in Political Science, prominent environmental activist advocating for a better environment, the preservation of public goods, and a more just society, president of the Green Istria Association for 18 years. She entered politics for the first time with Možemo! in 2021, and initiated the establishment of the local Možemo! Group in Pula. In the 2021 and 2025 local elections, she was elected to the City Council of Pula. Since 2025 a Member of the Croatian Parliament and a Chair of the Parliamentary Environment Nature Conservation Committee.

From Degrowth to Eco-Sufficiency and Back: Pathways to Reduce Consumption

Vincent Liegey, Agata Meysner, Jagoda Munić, moderator: Branko Ančić

Agata Meysner is a climate activist and a non-profit entrepreneur from Poland. She co-founded and lead Generation Climate Europe, the largest coalition of youth-led networks on climate and environmental justice issues in Europe. Under her leadership, GCE has grown its membership to 380+ member organisations across 46 countries. She has collaborated with Europe’s largest environmental NGOs, and advised leading international organisations, such as the OECD and the European Commission. Agata is also a Fellow at the University of Oxford. Her expertise focuses on intergenerational justice, circular and wellbeing economy. She specialises in building impactful coalitions and strategies that drive systemic change. Agata regularly speaks at leading conferences on EU policy and social impact across Europe.

Branko Ančić, PhD, is a Senior Research Associate at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb (IDIZ) and a former member of the Green Academy Program Council. His research focuses on the sociology of sustainable development, the social dimensions of climate change, the energy transition, and the societal potential for degrowth. He has led and participated in numerous national and international research projects centered on environmental policies, energy poverty, and social inequalities. Alongside his academic work, he is actively involved in green-left political initiatives aimed at just socio-ecological transition.

HBS

Simon Ilse

Human Security: Winning Peace – Rethinking Security

Wars, hybrid threats, and social crises define our era—yet security is still often framed in military and reactive terms. Based on the concept of Human Security, this session argues for a radical shift: defining security from the perspective of people, as freedom from fear, want, and indignity. How can we develop a progressive peace narrative that treats social investment, climate action and digital self-determination as core security priorities? And how do we avoid the false dichotomy of “guns vs. butter”?

Together, we’ll explore a positive security concept—one that makes vulnerabilities visible and reimagines solutions beyond armament. Through interactive discussions on the island of Vis, symbol of resistance, we’ll work toward a shared story of progressive peace: one that connects justice, participation and the protection of democratic values.

Simon Ilse is Head of Global Unit for Human Security at the Heinrich Böll Foundation.

A CONVERSATION WITH

Tihomir Dakić

(Re)Building The Movement

For many years now we have been neglecting the fact that building a movement is constant work, rather than using more capacities. People in the focus, not topics (only). The environment is changing and the work with and for initiatives and the movement needs to change.

Tihomir Dakić was born in 1980 in Banja Luka, where he graduated from high school as a civil engineering technician, and then from the Faculty of Physical Education and Sports. He started working at the Center for the Environment in 2001, first as a volunteer, then as a coordinator of the transport program, and from 2021 he is the president of the association. Currently in the position of president, he represents the work and directions of the association, represents the environmental movement in Bosnia and Herzegovina and advocates the development of initiatives and associations that fight for the protection of the natural wealth of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He is fluent in English and Italian. He is a motivator, initiator of initiatives and a socially responsible citizen. Love for cycling flows into initiatives for the development of cycle tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina. For him, a bicycle is not just a means of transport or a sports prop, for him it is a philosophy of life.

KOOPERATIVA MODULE

Antonia Majača

Subsistence, Abundance, Metabolic Commons – Feminist Political Ecology II

The module proposes the question how to redistribute the labor that sustains the living and uses this question to debates on sufficiency, abundance, and the commons into a single political problem.

Suggested reading ( we will be reading together short excerpts I will prepare so no need to read anything in advance)

Sunday 23/8

21:00 – 23:30

PARALLEL SESSIONS

PANEL

AI, Technology and Democracy

Sophie Bloemen, Petar Jandrić, Renata Ávila Pinto, moderator: Tomislav Medak

Since the release of ChatGPT, less than four years ago, an enormous transition is apace, arguably affecting and disrupting major spheres of social and ecological reproduction – from education and work, over energy and water, to security and warfare. Rarely has a general-use technology become so widely adopted and subject to a geopolitical arms race so quickly as generative artificial intelligence. Capital overaccumulated since the mid-2000s in the Big Tech, and weighing down on the profitability of other industries in capitalist economies, is now spilling over into enormous investments in AI infrastructure, resulting in unprecedented market valuations and a boom in financial markets. The protectionist pivot of the Trump administration, vying for economic domination, particularly over China, has found a perfect match in Big Tech’s AI boom. In return, Big Tech companies have been, for a long while, seeking a way to avoid monopoly regulation. Now they also need government’s support in circumventing environmental policies and energy priorities that place limits on the resources available for their expansion. The deployment of AI, developed and run on the infrastructure of Big Tech, amid the war on Ukraine and Palestine and the resulting remilitarization of Europe puts the cherry on top.

Renata Ávila Pinto is a lawyer, author and digital rights and technology expert. She is currently the CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation, a global non-profit organisation that promotes the idea of open knowledge and works to advance the sharing and use of knowledge in ways that are transparent, inclusive, and beneficial to society, including open data, open access to research, open education, and open government. She is a co-founder of the <A+> Alliance for Inclusive Algorithms, a collective effort that aims to advance the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in a way that is beneficial and inclusive to all people.

Sophie Bloemen is a political economist and co-founder and director of Commons Network, a collaboratory for democratic caring economy and democratic technology based in Amsterdam. She works at the intersection of economic transition, postgrowth, digital commons and the role of governments. As social advocate in policy and organiser, she has worked extensively on democratization of the economy and public-civic partnerships, developing ideas, proposals and projects for postgrowth economies. Her work and projects span from the local to the global level, having worked with international institutions, European policy makers, as well as ministries and municipalities. Throughout her career she co-initiated and coordinated several alliances of civil society organizations and currently chairs the platform for the community economy in Amsterdam (MeentCoop), as well as the cross party, civil society and business organised Democratic Tech Alliance in Brussels. Her research with the School of Governance at the University of Utrecht focuses on democratic technology and she regularly speaks and publishes on her ideas, including the book Our Commons: Political Ideas for a New Europe.

Petar Jandrić is Professor at Zagreb University of Applied Sciences, Croatia, Visiting Professor at Sungkyunkwan University, Korea, and Visiting Fellow at Bath Spa University, UK. He edits Postdigital Science and Education journal https://www.springer.com/journal/42438, Postdigital Science and Education book series https://www.springer.com/series/16439, Encyclopedia of Postdigital Science and Education, https://link.springer.com/referencework/10.1007/978-3-031-35469-4, and Chapters in Education, https://link.springer.com/series/60490. Personal website: http://petarjandric.com/.

MOVIE AND CONVERSATION

“Where Futures Take Root: The Case of Bor” – Kontekst Kolektiv,
doplgenger (2025/26)

with Iskra Krstić and Vida Knežević

The short film essay “Where Futures Take Root: The Case of Bor” (13′) was created through collaboration between Kontekst Collective and the artist duo doplgenger during 2025 and 2026. In the essay, collective knowledge was connected with Kontekst’s previous research, as well as the production of new meanings through an experimental film language. Through the paradigmatic example of the mining town of Bor and the neo-colonial relations that accompanied the development of mining in this region of Serbia, the theme of mining is linked to the processes of global extractivism in both historical and contemporary perspectives. The close connections between extractivism and war, and the growing militarization intertwine through montage sequences with the narratives of antifascist and anticapitalist struggle articulated through the language of art. At the center of the research are not only the scale of destruction, but also the persistence of resistance. The inspiration and starting point for the research were the poems of Miklós Radnóti, the Hungarian poet imprisoned in the labor camp of the Bor mine, which during World War II produced one quarter of the Third Reich’s military demand for copper.

The research segment “Where Futures Take Root: The Case of Bor” is part of the long-term curatorial, artistic and research project of Kontekst Collective titled “Where Futures Take Root: Collective Practices of Resistance, Solidarity and Future-Building” (2025 – ongoing), which addresses extractivism as a regime – economic, political and ideological – that shapes and destroys nature, the living world and social relations. The project brings together art collectives, artists, researchers, as well as various local communities around shared struggles against the exploitation of natural resources, the transformation of landscapes into resources, the exhaustion and erosion of labor rights, and ever deeper spatial and social injustices. Through research, workshops, working meetings and public programs, engaged artistic practice meets local knowledge and struggle. These encounters serve as spaces of exchange, learning and collective reflection, but also as a contribution to connecting struggles that are often isolated and left to confront these processes on their own.

The project is supported by the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung Southeast Europe.

Vida Knežević is an art historian, curator, researcher and cultural worker. She is a co-founder of Kontekst Collective, whose work connects critical theory and practice, artistic production and broader forms of social engagement. She holds a PhD in Art Theory from the University of Arts in Belgrade and is the author of Without Waiting for Inspiration: Yugoslav Art between the Two World Wars and the Revolutionary Social Movement (2023). From 2014 to 2025, she co-founded and co-edited the independent media platform Mašina.rs, exploring the intersections of art, culture, political economy and activism. Her work focuses on the relationships between art, antifascism, feminism, labour struggles and extractivism through research, curatorial practice, film and collaborative projects, including Kun: Artist – Worker – Fighter (2024) and Where Futures Take Root (2025 – ongoing).

Iskra Krstić is a researcher in critical urban studies, urban planner, political scientist, journalist and activist. She is a member of Kontekst Collective and Programme manager for extractivism at the Organisation for Political Ecology (Polekol). Her work focuses on the politics of space and spatial justice, including deregulation, the degradation of public space, housing policies in both state socialist and contemporary contexts, environmental struggles, extractivism and militarisation. From 2014 to 2025, she worked as a journalist for the independent media platform Mašina.rs and contributed to the regional online magazine Bilten, as well as to other media outlets in Serbia and abroad. She is a member of the Right to Water initiative and a former member of the secretariat of the European Water Movement and the Alliance of Antifascists of Serbia (SAFS).

Monday 24/8

10:00 – 11:30

PLENARY

KEYNOTE: Emma Holten

Deficit / Feminist Economics to Remake the World

Emma Holten holds an MA in Modern Culture from the University of Copenhagen. Since 2014, she has worked internationally on feminist issues. She has served on the Expert Forum of the European Institute of Gender Equality and is a member of the advisory group on women’s rights at International Human Rights Watch. Since 2019, she has been giving lectures on feminist economics and the value of care. Deficit (2024) is her first book. It has won several prizes in Denmark and one in Sweden. She lives in Copenhagen.

Monday 24/8

11:30 – 13:30

PARALLEL SESSIONS

CITIES BEYOND GROWTH: Jeroen Oomen,
Franziska Paul

Jeroen Oomen is assistant professor at the Urban Futures Studio, where he researches the social, cultural, and scientific practices that create societies’ con- ceptions of the future. Oomen is a recognized expert on futuring, environmental politics, and climate engineering. His books includeCaptured Futures: Rethinking the Drama of Environmental Politics (with Maarten Hajer; 2025), reviewed in Nature as arguably the most important book on environmental politics in the past decade”, and Imagining Climate Engineering: Dreaming of the Designer Climate (2021).

Dr Franziska Paul is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Political Economy at the University of Glasgow, Scotland. Her research explores issues of ownership and transformation (social, ecological, economic), with a specific focus on processes of de-privatisation, democratisation, and alternative economic development. Current research projects investigate democratic ownership and governance of public provision (services, assets and infrastructures), local and regional wealth creation, and labour perspectives on just energy transition.

GEF TALKS: Deal or No Deal: The Contested Futures of Europe’s Green Transition

Agata Meysner, Pablo Sanchez, Sandra Benčić, moderator: Jamie Kendrick

Europe’s consensus over the Green Deal proved short-lived. Since the 2024 European election, a fight over its future has reigned. The EU still plays lip service to the green transition, while opening the door to deregulation and lobbies representing both the decrepit industries of the past and tech overlords of the present. Cheap green tech and new energy crises are convincing business and governments to stay the course, but growing inequalities make the need for real transformation more pressing than ever. As the new struggles to be born, our speakers will sketch out the contradictory defining the current movement and look ahead to key struggles for European green politics:

Agata Meysner – Board member, Green European Foundation and Co-Founder, Generation Climate Europe
Sandra Benčić – Member of Parliament and co-leader, Možemo!
Pablo Sanchez – Local and Regional Government Officer, European Public Services Union
Moderation: Jamie Kendrick – Head of Policy, Green European Foundation

HBS

Corrosive Capital in the Region, Coastline Cases: Montenegro, Albania and beyond

Iliriana Gjoni, Alba Çela, Edo Kanlić, Bojan Elek, Denisa Casa

Who really shapes the future of the Western Balkans? In this interactive workshop, we will unpack the concept of corrosive capital and examine how strategic investments can influence governance, democratic institutions, and EU enlargement. Working through real-world cases from Montenegro, Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia, participants will debate where the line lies between legitimate investment, geopolitical influence, and democratic resilience.

CPE WORKSHOP

Darko Vesić and Jovana Timotijević

Jadar and Expo 2027 as Cases Of “New Primitivism” – Political and Economic Consequenes of Accumulation Through Dispossesion of Nature and the City

The Jadar project and “Expo 2027 Belgrade” exhibition occupy opposite ends of capitalist value production: one extracts natural resources, the other urban resources. Yet they show how valorisation proceeds through primitive accumulation, rent extraction, and authoritarian governance.

Extractivism is a process of value extraction mostly associated with mining, oil, or forestry. More broadly, it involves appropriating the commons, commodifying new spheres of life, and capturing rents. Mining and urban extractivism are different forms of the same process: privatisation of common resources, concentration of ownership, and wealth transfer through rent, while ecological and social costs are shifted onto local communities. In cities, this logic turns land, housing, infrastructure, and public services into instruments of capital valorisation.

The session will examine Jadar and Expo 2027 as forms of accumulation by dispossession. Examples will show how this logic is implemented and normalised through special-purpose legislation, deregulation, misuse of expropriation, and discourse.

This model consolidates authoritarian rule. The state is not a neutral arbiter but an active agent in reproducing capitalist relations. Where accumulation depends on dispossession, weaker environmental standards, and commodification of the commons, the state secures valorisation through centralised decision-making, regulatory changes, restricted participation, and criminalisation of resistance.

Authoritarianism is a functional response to conflicts generated by dispossession. As capital becomes more dependent on appropriating natural and social goods, pressure grows to weaken democratic institutions and strengthen executive power.

Jovana Timotijević is a Belgrade-based researcher and activist engaged in spatial justice issues in areas of urban planning, housing and land management. Her work combines organising, educational work, policy and theory analysis, grounded in the intersection of critical urban studies and feminist politics. She is currently pursuing a PhD at the Faculty of Political Sciences, University of Belgrade, on the topic of feminist critique of political economy of planning and land politics.

Darko Vesić is the Co-Coordinator of the Research and Education Programme at the Centre for Emancipation Policies and one of the organization’s founders. He is also a co-editor and lecturer in the Studies of Socialism political education programme, with a primary focus on the critique of political economy and the analysis of contemporary forms of capitalist accumulation. He is the author, co-author, and co-editor of numerous research papers, analyses, and publications on labour, public goods, and socio-economic policy.

Olivier De Schutter (online)

There is a Better Way: Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth

The result of 18 months of debates and consultations led by the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, the Roadmap for Eradicating Poverty Beyond Growth identifies a set of policy measures that could allow to make progress in the fight against poverty and inequalities without worsening the environmental crises by further trespassing planetary boundaries. The Roadmap was presented in April 2026 at the ILO headquarters in Geneva. It has subsequently been endorsed by the United Nations Human Rights Council as a compass governments could seek inspiration from to design their anti-poverty strategies. The former Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights will provide a behind-the-scenes picture of how the Roadmap was conceived and developed, how it was received, which challenges remain, and what its likely future could be. Moving beyond economic growth to reduce poverty and inequalities is both an intellectual and a political challenge. It requires not only a leap in imagination, but also the adoption of the right governance tools, and the creation of new alliances. Provided the right conditions are created, what seems now politically impossible will become politically inevitable.

Olivier De Schutter was the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights until May 2026, and he is currently chair of New Economies for Eradicating Poverty (NEEP) and member of the Council of Europe’s Committee on Social Rights. Before that, he was the UN Special Rapporteur on the right to food (2008-2014) and a member of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (2015-2020).

KOOPERATIVA MODULE

Solidarity in Action: Supporting AKC Gnezdo, Kruševac

Facilitated by: Kaća Dimitrijević (AKC Gnezdo / Fakiri s juga, Kruševac) and Luka Knežević-Strika (ICSS, Belgrade)

Monday 24/8

16:30 – 18:00

PARALLEL SESSIONS

Karla Crnčević and Ivana Perić

No Feminism Without Palestine – Boycott in Practice I

No Feminism Without Palestine: BDS in Practice is a two-day workshop on boycott as a political tool and on the practical questions it raises in culture today. Starting from distinctions between boycott and censorship, individual authors and the systems behind cultural production, nationality and institutional complicity, we will examine how funding, institutions and circulation shape the political life of artworks. Through historical examples and contemporary BDS and PACBI campaigns, the workshop asks how solidarity can move from statement to practice and what it means to act collectively within our own cultural field and sports!

Ivana Perić is a journalist for the weekly newspaper Novosti. She is a member of the Nepokorena Palestina collective and the feminist collective fAKTIV.

Karla Crnčević is a film worker whose practice engages with archives and cinema as a space of encounter. She is a co-founder and curator of KINO UNSEEN and a member of the collective Nepokorena Palestina.

WORKSHOP

Petar Jandrić

Post-digital Futures

15:30 – 20:00

Since the beginning of history, people have worried that technological development would impede human abilities. A common example is Socrates’ belief that reading and writing as ‘external memory’ would weaken human abilities to remember and think. Twentieth-century cybernetics has popularized transhumanist beliefs that technological development will lead to the enhancement of human capabilities. However, those positive predictions differ in size, scope, and timing of anticipated transformations.

As digital technologies have matured, early twenty-first century witnesses a transfer of this debate from theory to practice: we now have experimental evidence that technologies simultaneously develop some human capabilities and impede others. Together with the dominating discourse of technological determinism and instrumentalism, this has created some resistance to the trend of widespread digitization. Based on a recent event in Stockholm, this resistance is now studied under the name of postdigital backlash / postdigital forwardlash. In June 2026, the Postdigital Backlash: Past, Present, Future conference held in Zagreb, Croatia, has produced more than 50 scholarly articles on the various aspects of postdigital backlash / postdigital forwardlash. In a short introduction, Petar will outline key theoretical aspects of this relationship.

After a short theoretical introduction, participants in the workshop will engage in hands-on futuring activity where they will imagine, individually and collectively, a future that achieves what they see as an adequate balance between postdigital backlash and postdigital forwardlash. The workshop consists of 5 stages:

Introduction, where participants are introduced to the concepts of postdigital backlash / forwardlash, futuring, and sociotechnical imaginaries. (30 min)

Task setting. It is year 2050, the sea has risen dramatically, and in many places in Croatia schools have become unavailable. Many people live in remote areas with no connection to land. where are divided into two 4-person groups. One group consists of teachers, who travel to these remote places by boat and teach remote students. The other group are remote students. The boat with teachers needs to cover ca 50 remote places per year. Think the movie Waterworld. (30 min)

Design. Each group develops a strategy for their activities. First, they imagine what kind of education would be suitable for their context. Then, teachers imagine their teaching strategies, students imagine their learning strategies. Each group creates a list of 10 main technologies needed for their task. (1 hour)

Comparison. The groups reconvene, compare their strategies, and lists of technologies. They agree upon a list of 10 main technologies that they will use. (30 min)

Reflection. Participants analyze their findings and answer the following questions. What kind of education would result from their teaching and learning strategy? What is the relationship between technology use and the quality of education? How resilient / sustainable is their planned technology use? Are there any technologies from the agreed list that can be replaced by simpler technologies or no technologies at all?
Finally, generalization. What, in this context, would be an adequate balance between postdigital backlash and postdigital forwardlash? What does this exercise tell us about the backlash / forwardlash more generally? How can we learn from this futures exercise for our present choices about technology? (30 min)

While the workshop is itself context-specific, the futuring method standardly used and transferrable to diverse contexts.

References
Forsler, I., Hayes, S., Jandrić, P., Macgilchrist, F., Selwyn, N., & Hansén, S. (2025). Hijacking the Digital Backlash in Education. Postdigital Science and Education, 8(2), 600-620. https://doi.org/10.1007/s42438-025-00601-9.
Jandrić, P., Suoranta, J., Teräs, M., & Davis, H. (Eds.). (2025). Postdigital (Re)Imaginations: Critiques, Methods, and Interventions. Cham: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-032-01539-6.

TOUR DE ISSA

Study visit to the Island School of Social Autonomy

15:30 – 20:00

In the woods of island Vis near Tito’s cave, lies ISSA – The Island School of Social Autonomy (issa-school.org), a unique school where enthusiasts, artists, activists, philosophers, writers, and islanders meet to build a school from scratch – solar-powered, self-taught, self-built. Experimenting with new and old knowledge, community, and autonomy beyond the classroom, it is centered around the age-old question of how to “live well”. Members of ISSA will provide a short tour through the infrastructure and land, together we will help building the school. Take shoes and water, get ready for an adventure.

WORKSHOP

Gordan Bosanac

The New EU Multiannual Financial Framework

The workshop will focus on the new EU Multiannual Financial Framework (2028-2034) and opportunities/obstacles for Green political forces to set the priorities for future financing. Based on a presentation and conversation with Croatian green MEP Gordan Bosanac and on his work in the European Parliament and the internal discussion/group work on priorities of the Green group in the EP, it will lay ground for forthcoming political battles over various priorities which need to be integrated in the new MFF.

Climate Protection After European Green Deal?

Asad Rehman, Jagoda Munić, Sandra Benčić, moderator: Dražen Šimleša

With the European Green Deal (EGD) being watered down and threatened with political pushback and the so-called greenlash, there is a concerning trend of deregulation which is detrimental for policies which focus on environmental and social wellbeing. With speakers arriving from various fields and levels of action (civil society, municipal, national politics), this panel discussion will focus on detecting priorities for keeping the limited legacy of the EGD’s success alive in the field of energy policy, land use, biodiversity protection etc. As we witness an increased volume of hazardous climate impacts across the EU (fires, droughts, heatwaves etc), the measures needed for adaptation and for the continuation of fossil fuel phaseout will also be discussed.

WORKSHOP

Delfina Fantini van Ditmar and Katie Pfeiffer

Regenerative Vis through Local Ecologies

Adopting a regenerative lens, this workshop moves beyond conventional sustainability. Rather than focusing on reducing negative impacts “doing less bad” and improving existing practices, regeneration fundamentally rethinks the status quo through a whole-systems, salutogenic (bringing back health) approach (Reed, 2007; Wahl, 2016).

From this perspective, the workshop extends beyond the efficiency and optimisation of resource use of sustainability to explore what Vis already has in abundance (Jan Bolean, Atelier Luma): local materials, forgotten infrastructures, traditional knowledge, marine ecologies, agricultural by-products, and specific waste streams.

By engaging with Vis’ place-based abundances rooted in its unique ecological and cultural context, the workshop shifts the focus from extraction and efficiency toward care, reciprocity, and resilience. The workshop invites participants to develop regenerative design strategies that create value from the overlooked and imagine futures where human activity actively contributes to the vitality of the island.

Katie Pfeiffer is a Postdoctoral Researcher with Becoming Regenerative, a UKRI-funded project tracing how regenerative innovation emerges across global contexts. An anthropologist by training, she is interested in the ethical dimensions of design and regenerative imaginaries.

Prof. Delfina Fantini van Ditmar, PhD, is a Research Professor and Chair of the Regenerative Art and Design research group at the Centre of Applied Research for Art, Design and Technology (CARADT) in the Netherlands. She is also a Senior Researcher at the Royal College of Art, where she co-directs the UKRI-funded Becoming Regenerative Lab. Delfina holds a BA in Biology and completed her PhD at the Royal College of Art in the School of Design (SoD). Driven by her interest in ecological thinking, reflective practices and inter-relations as a systemic response to the environmental collapse, Delfina’s critical practice examines material ethics of care and the necessary paradigm shift in design.

WORKSHOP

Jules NeSmith

Exploring the Foundational Elements of Climate Resilience using a Visual Participatory Methodology

5-8 different people per session

Location: Hotel mezzanine terrace

Monday 24/8

18:00 – 19:30

PARALLEL SESSIONS

CITIES BEYOND GROWTH

Practices and cases: Predrag Momčilović, Sergi Cot

Predrag Momčilović is a researcher, journalist, and political activist based in Belgrade. He currently work as executive director of the Center for Green Politics, a green think tank organisation based in Belgrade. He is pursuing a PhD at the Faculty of Geography in Belgrade, with a focus on political ecology, degrowth, and doughnut economy. His research and advocacy cover topics such as resource limitations, the social dimensions of climate change, food production, air quality, and just energy transition. His motto is “If you can’t imagine that a different world is possible, it doesn’t mean it’s not possible, we just need to work on it together.”

Sergi Cot Cantalosella. Graduate in Chemistry from the University of Girona and a Master’s degree in Sustainable Chemistry from the Polytechnic University of Valencia. He has worked in the private iindustrial sector, in scientific research, and also in the public sector. He is currently the Councillor for Climate Action at the Girona City Council, a municipality that has launched a pioneering agreement between the academic institution for post-growth studies and the municipality, with the aim of developing a better and clear local public policies from a post-growth perspective.

TOUR DE ISSA

Study visit to the Island School of Social Autonomy

15:30 – 20:00

WORKSHOP

Petar Jandrić

Post-digital Futures

15:30 – 20:00

See above.

HBS

Diverging Agendas – Assessing EU Integration and US Interests in the Western Balkans

Alba Çela, Bojan Elek, Balsha Bozhović, Edo Kanlić

What do EU approaches on enlargement and shifting U.S. priorities mean for the future of the Western Balkans? In this interactive workshop, we will discuss how growing differences between the EU and the U.S. are shaping politics, security, energy policy, the rule of law, and environmental protection across the region. The focus will be on current developments in countries such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Albania, and reflect on what these changes mean for democracy, civil society, and Europe’s future. Workshop by members of the hbs related Western Balkans 6 Strategy Group (https://ba.boell.org/en/western-balkans-strategy-group)

GEF TALKS

Beyond the Tech Race: Reimagining Europe’s Digital Future

Jan Philipp Albrecht, Renata Ávila Pinto, moderator: Seden Anlar

Technology is no longer just transforming our economies; it is reshaping democracy itself. Today, political power is increasingly exercised through digital platforms, AI systems, and the infrastructures that organise public life. These technologies influence how we access information, participate in politics, interact with public institutions, and imagine the future. At the same time, digital spaces have become important sites of political mobilisation and cultural formation. Platform monopolies, surveillance, and increasingly reactionary online cultures are reshaping political identities and democratic debate, with far-right movements proving particularly adept at turning these digital ecosystems into political power.

The EU’s response, meanwhile, is increasingly framed as a race for competitiveness: how to catch up with the United States and China, develop more AI, scale infrastructure, and build European champions. But what kind of digital future does Europe build if “catching up” becomes the main measure of success?

This GEF Talk brings together Renata Ávila Pinto, CEO of the Open Knowledge Foundation, and Jan Philipp Albrecht, President of the Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung, for a conversation moderated by journalist Seden Anlar. Together, they will explore what a different political vision for technology, rooted in political ecology, could look like, and how ideas of the commons, democratic governance, ecological limits, and global justice can help reshape the digital sphere and build democratic counter-power in the age of AI.

Claudia Horn

Green Frontiers of Accumulation: Rosa Luxemburg’s Political Ecology and the Financialization of Nature

This session revisits Rosa Luxemburg’s writings on nature, the emergence and accumulation of capital, imperialism, and revolution. It examines the ongoing efforts of green capitalism to transform ecosystems into financial assets for carbon and biodiversity offsets. Luxemburg argued that capitalist accumulation depends on the continuous violent incorporation and extinction of territories, social relations, and forms of life outside of capitalist relations. Her early insights into frontier-making, dependency, and the role of finance in colonialism provide a useful perspective for examining the development of market-based environmental policies and conservation financing in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest from the Latin American debt crisis of the 1970s and ’80s to the present day, including the influence of neoliberal and racist conservationist ideologies, European donors and the World Bank, as well as the socioenvironmental resistance of Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian communities. Grounded in research on the political economy of Amazon conservation, land inequality, and financialization, the lecture explores how the integration of forests and other ecosystems into global “green” financial circuits reshapes unequal ecological exchange and the role of the capitalist state in the struggle over green resource frontiers. Finally, the session revisits the lessons of Luxemburg’s feminist eco-socialist vision and practice for today’s and tomorrow’s internationalist fight, both within and against, green colonial crisis capitalism.

Claudia Horn is a lecturer in political economy at the Department of European and International Studies at King’s College London. Her research critically examines the global politics of uneven development, ecological transition, and global inequalities. Her book manuscript, Where Money Grows on Trees: European Carbon Politics in the Brazilian Amazon, under review, examines the impact of climate finance on land conflicts. Her book The Herbarium of Rosa Luxemburg: Radical Ecology and the Global Plantation, OR Books 2026, combines the first transcription and translation of Luxemburg’s original annotated botanical notebooks with a discussion of her ecological critique.

KOOPERATIVA MODULE

Antonia Majača

Subsistence, Abundance, Metabolic Commons – Feminist Political Ecology III

The module proposes the question how to redistribute the labor that sustains the living and uses this question to debates on sufficiency, abundance, and the commons into a single political problem.

Suggested reading ( we will be reading together short excerpts I will prepare so no need to read anything in advance)

Monday 24/8

21:00 – 23:30

PARALLEL SESSIONS

KEYNOTE

Jan Philipp Albrecht

Green Politics in Turmoil – Whose Digital Democracy?

Since June 2022, Jan Philipp Albrecht serves as Co-President of the Berlin-based Heinrich Böll Foundation. Before, he was Minister for Energy Transition, Agriculture, Environment, Nature and Digitalisation of the State of Schleswig-Holstein in the Günther cabinet, since 1 September 2018.

As a Member of the European Parliament, Jan Philipp Albrecht represented the citizens of Hamburg and Schleswig-Holstein from 2009 to 2018. Jan Philipp Albrecht’s topics were home affairs and justice policy, including the reform of European data protection law, the right to legal assistance, the European Investigation Order, police policy and the fight against right-wing extremism. Particularly close to his heart are “civil rights in the digital age”.

As MEP, Jan Philipp Albrecht was a Member and Vice-Chairman of the Committee on Home Affairs and Justice and a Substitute Member of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. During his first legislative term from 2009-2014, he was a member of the Committee on Home Affairs and a substitute member of the Committee on Legal Affairs. From December 2012 to October 2013, Jan Philipp Albrecht was also coordinator for the Special Committee against Organised Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering. As the European Parliament’s negotiator for the planned Data Protection Regulation, he negotiated with the European Council Presidency and the European Commission on a uniform data protection law for the EU. In addition, Jan Philipp Albrecht was a member of the delegations for relations with Israel as well as Australia and New Zealand.

From 2003 to 2008, Jan studied law in Bremen, Brussels and Berlin, specialising in European and international law. Supported by a scholarship from the Heinrich Böll Foundation, he completed his studies with the first state law examination. Until his election to the 7th European Parliament in 2009, Jan specialised in IT law at the Universities of Hanover and Oslo within the framework of a DAAD-funded postgraduate master (LL.M.).

PANEL

Green Politics and Life in the Time of Monsters

Sandra Benčić, Gordan Bosanac, Radomir Lazović, Jan Philipp Albrecht, Benedetta de Marte, moderator: Vedran Horvat

This session will address the current moment with green-left politics across Europe and in the region of Southeastern Europe. Often operating between the poles of electoral success and winning power on one side and pure survival on the other, we will discuss in what ways can green proposals be more effective and convincing for the majorities. What can be learned from previous failures and how can we leave the ‘defensive’ mode in which we often find ourselves? In this time of turmoil and sharp geopolitical tensions that call for stability and security, how can the transformative agenda of green politics become successful? What are the concrete green proposals to ensure environmental and social wellbeing and improve quality of life in uncertain times? What happens with foundational values around which green movements were established in political arena?

Radomir Lazović is co-president of Green-left front and the head of the parliamentary group “Green – Left Font, Ne davimo Beograd” in the Serbian Parliament. He was born in 1980 in Belgrade. He has been active in the civil sector for more than 12 years, working at the Institute for Urban Policies / Ministry of Space, and organizations in the field of cultural policies; urban development; civil, political and social rights; democratic innovations and media. He is a co-founder and long time manager of Belgrade’s Street Gallery, and during his career as a cultural worker, he has taken part in creating and running several cultural centers in Belgrade. From 2015 to 2017, he was the president of the board of directors of the Association of the Independent Cultural Scene of Serbia.

Benedetta De Marte has been Secretary General of the European Green Party since 2022. Originally from Milan, Italy, she now resides in Belgium and serves as a local Green councillor in Brussels City. With over a decade of experience in the European Green movement, as Secretary General, De Marte has focused on expanding the European Green Party, strengthening party cohesion across Europe and fostering the Green movement in EU accession countries.

HUMAN RIGHTS FF MOVIE

“Undercover: Exposing the Far Right” – Havana Marking (2024, 95′)

Tuesday 25/8

11:30 – 13:30

PARALLEL SESSIONS

CITIES BEYOND GROWTH: Closing session

GEF TALKS: Green European Journal – Europe Is Ageing – Who Cares? Thinking with GEJ’s latest print edition

Emma Holten, Silvana Briones Piedrafita, Jelena Miloš, moderator: Alessio Giussani

Thinking with the Green European Journal‘s latest print edition, Life Lines.

Emma Holten – feminist debater, online humans rights activist and editor of Friktion magazine
Silvana Briones Piedrafita – Technical Advisor on Information, Office of the Spanish Minister of Social Rights, Consumer Affairs, and the 2030 Agenda
Jelena Miloš – Member of Parliament, Možemo!
Moderation: Alessio Giussani – Editor in chief, Green European Journal

Drawing on the latest edition of the Green European Journal, this roundtable examines demographic change, ageing societies, care, migration and intergenerational justice from a political ecology perspective.

CENTER FOR GREEN POLITICS PANEL

Urban Mobility Between Speed and Justice

Zoran Bukvić, Tihomir Dakić, Jovana Božović, moderator: Predrag Momčilović

The Center for Green Politics will publish at the end of June a new edition of the magazine about green politics and political ecology: Omorika. The theme of the issue is mobility with a focus on urban mobility. During the session, we would like to open the issues of justice and mobility, as well as the intersection of mobility with the issue of gender through the views of the cities of the European semi-periphery. The proposal is for the session to be in the form of a panel where the participants would present their insights and partially touch on the texts from Omorika, after which a discussion would be opened. The question of mobility is increasingly seen as a technical issue, while the desire to increase the speed of transport has become a commonplace both on the right and on the left, during this session we would like to reconsider these established narratives and to think about what the alternatives are and how to make mobility more sustainable and, at the same time, fairer.

WORKSHOP

Emina Bužinkić

Toward Each Other: Solidarity as a Pedagogy (of Resistance)

Solidarity is not only a political position but a pedagogical practice through which we learn to struggle, reflect, and act together. This workshop explores how the ways we organize shape our political cultures, asking how we can cultivate movement infrastructures that are inclusive, responsible, and capable of holding differences without demanding uniformity. Rather than treating consensus as the goal, we will consider commitment as the ethical foundation of movement building: a shared willingness to remain in relationship, deepen our collective political analysis, and keep moving toward each other across disagreement. The workshop also asks what it means to practice political hygiene as an ongoing collective commitment: learning to distinguish between differences that enrich our movements and practices that undermine them. Together, we will reflect on how ego, racism, nationalism, authoritarian ways of working, extractive authorship, informal hierarchies, and monopolies of knowledge can quietly—and rapidly—reproduce the very forms of domination we seek to resist. Rooted in more than twenty years of solidarity organizing and solidarity actions with border crossers, and shaped most recently through the Free Palestine Initiative, this workshop invites participants to reflect on how movements can become places where solidarity is continuously learned, practiced, and renewed.

Dr Emina Bužinkić is an independent researcher, writer, facilitator and community organizer at the intersections of migration, race, transnational solidarities, peace and feminist pedagogies. She co-builds wider transnational solidarity movements and world-making across borders, most vividly through the Free Palestine Initiative, Transnational Solidarities conversations from the ground, and with the editorial collective of AGITATE! – Unsettling Knowledges. As a community accountable researcher, she moves through narrative and feminist critical ethnographies and decolonial methodologies crafting inquiries that unsettle dominant ways of knowing. She recently concluded her postdoctoral research on digital racial capitalism, migrant labor and post-Covid governance in a semi-peripheral European context. Previously she earned her doctorate in critical interdisciplinary studies from the University of Minnesota, USA.

KOOPERATIVA MODULE

Solidarity in Action: Supporting AKC Gnezdo, Kruševac

Facilitated by: Kaća Dimitrijević (AKC Gnezdo / Fakiri s juga, Kruševac) and Luka Knežević-Strika (ICSS, Belgrade)

Tuesday 25/8

16:30 – 18:00

PARALLEL SESSIONS

Karla Crnčević and Ivana Perić

No Feminism Without Palestine – Boycott in Practice II

Ivana Perić is a journalist for the weekly newspaper Novosti. She is a member of the Nepokorena Palestina collective and the feminist collective fAKTIV.

CENTER FOR GREEN POLITICS WORKSHOP

Predrag Momčilović

Let’s Imagine Not Abundant Utopias

Degrowth is often described as the only viable solution to the current social, economic, climate, and sense crisis. On the other hand, a frequent criticism of the degrowth theory is that it is too utopian but still insufficiently desirable for the wider population. During this session we want to examine how to make the degrowth utopia more desirable and at the same time easy to understand. When people talk about utopias, they usually imagine a techno-futuristic utopia or some kind of ancient Greek plenum where everyone sits in togas and discusses and everything else is resolved. It is rare to think about utopias where biophysical reality is deteriorating, where climate change continues to warm the planet AND where there are many challenges but in general the world is moving in the right direction. During this session, together with the participants, we want to imagine what a different social-based upbringing could look like. In the first part of the session, Predrag Momčilović will give an introduction on the topic of utopias, and after that, in an open discussion and with individual exercises, we will try to imagine what a realistic degrowth utopia could look like. Part of the inspiration for this session is the book Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin.

Predrag Momčilović is a researcher, journalist, and political activist based in Belgrade. He currently work as executive director of the Center for Green Politics, a green think tank organisation based in Belgrade. He is pursuing a PhD at the Faculty of Geography in Belgrade, with a focus on political ecology, degrowth, and doughnut economy. His research and advocacy cover topics such as resource limitations, the social dimensions of climate change, food production, air quality, and just energy transition. His motto is “If you can’t imagine that a different world is possible, it doesn’t mean it’s not possible, we just need to work on it together.”

Dirk Holemans

Shaping Sustainable Futures: Donut Economics for Culture and Cooperatives

How can we build a society that is both ecologically safe and socially just? In this presentation, Dirk Holemans presents the results of an Erasmus+ project (of IPE and Oikos) that translated the principles of Doughnut Economics into practical tools for cultural organizations and cooperatives in Belgium and Croatia. But also for other types of organisations, these tools are crucial to transform them into regenerative, distributive, and resilient entities. Join us to discover how your organization can actively tackle climate change, respect planetary boundaries, and help secure a thriving, fair future for all.

Dirk Holemans is Coordinator of Oikos, a Belgian Think Tank striving for socio-ecological change, and Honorary President of the Green European Foundation. He is co-author of Dare to Care and Enough. Thriving Societies Beyond Growth. His expertise in the fields of commons, well being economy, political ecology and complex systems thinking.

WORKSHOP

Nikolina Silla

In-between: Embodied Inquiry through Physical Theatre, Movement and Collective Improvisation

WORKSHOP

Jules NeSmith

Exploring the Foundational Elements of Climate Resilience using a Visual Participatory Methodology

5-8 different people per session

Location: Hotel mezzanine terrace

Tuesday 25/8

18:00 – 19:30

PLENARY

CLOSING PANEL

Future in the Aftermath

Jelena Miloš, Gordan Bosanac, Dobrica Veselinović, moderator: Jerko Bakotić

We are living through a time of polycrisis unfolding across geopolitics, the economy, society, energy and the climate. Latest with the West’s tolerance of and complicity in the genocide in Gaza, the so-called “rules-based international order” is demonstrably dead. Decades of neoliberalism have produced ever-growing inequality, while global warming is causing increasingly frequent natural disasters. War has once again become an accepted means of pursuing political goals. Russia is determined to reassert its influence through military aggression, while the United States’ response to its declining hegemony has been anti-globalism and unapologetic imperialism.

Liberal democracy is under pressure from the rise of the far right, fuelled by failed economic policies, hate campaigns against migrants, culture wars and the influence of tech billionaires who control key digital infrastructures. While falling behind the United States and China economically, the European Union often appears hypocritical and unable to act as a geopolitical actor. Its increasingly militarised policies are paradoxically deepening the continent’s dependence on Washington. A growing number of experts warn that a great-power war is once again possible, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

In an era of such profound upheaval we want to explore what is the meaningful role for green politics in this time of turmoil and was it merely a political project suited to a calmer age? Can green-left politics – and how – adapt to new geopolitical tensions and what we can learn from our own failures – particularly in relation to rise of far right?

How can political power be organised in a post-democratic era dominated by small elites, in which citizens are hyper-political yet increasingly unwilling to join political parties? What should a green anti-fascism look like? What should green-left politics become after the collapse of the established security and economic order, of pacifism as a preferred political horizon, and of the hope that humanity is moving towards a better future?

Bringing together Green politicians from across the region, this panel will explore these questions from a broad perspective.

Jelena Miloš is a Member of the Croatian Parliament (Možemo!), where she works on European and social affairs. Since 2024, she has served as a member of the European Green Party Committee. Before entering politics, she worked in trade unions and civil society organisations, focusing on labour rights, social policy and environmental issues. She holds a degree in political science from the Université libre de Bruxelles.

Dobrica Veselinović is a Serbian green MP, political leader and strategist.
From co-founding the Ministry of Space to driving the iconic Do Not Let Belgrade D(r)own movement, he has been a central force in turning grassroots civic resistance into a new green left political party: the Green-Left Front. Driven by a deep commitment to progressive urbanism, environmental justice, and participatory democracy, he focuses on spatial planning, sustainable mobility, and the protection of public goods.