EVENT DESCRIPTION:
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and Dutch Prime Minister Wim Kok will join First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton and DLC President Al From for a DLC forum, The Third Way: Progressive Governance for the 21st Century. It will focus on the common domestic implications of rapid changes in world economic and social trends, and the efforts of Third Way reformers to modernize the politics and policies of center-left political parties in Europe and the United States.

The Third Way philosophy seeks to adapt enduring progressive values to the new challenges of the information age. It rests on three cornerstones: the idea that government should promote equal opportunity for all while granting special privilege for none; an ethic of mutual responsibility that equally rejects the politics of entitlement and the politics of social abandonment; and a new approach to governing that empowers citizens to act for themselves.

Starting with Bill Clinton's Presidential campaign in 1992, Third Way thinking is reshaping progressive politics throughout the world. Inspired by the example of Clinton and the New Democrats, Tony Blair in Britain led a revitalized New Labour party back to power in 1997. The victory of Gerhard Schroeder in Germany the next year confirmed the revival of center-left parties which either control or are part of governing coalitions forming throughout the European Union. From Latin America to Australia and New Zealand, Third Way ideas also are taking hold.

This forum represents a continuation of an international Third Way dialogue begun in 1997 by Prime Minister Blair and Mrs. Clinton in London, and continued in 1998 at a conference in New York that broadened the Anglo-American discussion to include other European New Progressive leaders. It also reflects the reality that the Third Way is the most rapidly growing international political movement in the world, and the rising tide in center-left political parties throughout Europe.

SPEAKERS:
President William J. Clinton, United States
First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, United States
Prime Minister Tony Blair, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
Prime Minister Wim Kok, The Netherlands
Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, Federal Republic of Germany
DLC President Al From
DLC Vice Chair and Former Colorado Governor Roy Romer
Maryland Lt. Governor Kathleen Kennedy Townsend
Georgia Labor Commissioner Mike Thurmond
Denver Mayor Wellington Webb