From left: Thordarson, Hannan, Zahradil, Anna Fotyga, Poland, Geoffrey Clifton-Brown, the UK, and Zafer Sirakaya, Turkey.
Icelandic MP Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson was elected one of the Vice Presidents of AECR, the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, at a Council Meeting 22 May 2015 in Winchester in England. RNH cooperates with AECR on two projects, Europe, Iceland and the Future of Capitalism, and Europe of the Victims. Czech EMP Jan Zahradil from the Civic Democratic Forum, ODS, is AECR President. He is an associate of former Czech President Vaclav Klaus. English EMP Daniel Hannan is AECR Secretary. Hannan, a long-time friend of Iceland, in the autumn of 2008 defended Iceland in The Times when the British Labour government invoked the anti-terrorism law against Icelandic companies and institutions (including the Central Bank of Iceland and the Icelandic Financial Services Authority). Two parties joined AECR at the Council Meeting, a conservative party from Croatia and a reformist party from Montenegro, signing the Reykjavik Declaration, adopted 21 March 2014.
Following the Council meeting, two panel debates took place, on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and on threats to the transatlantic alliance. AECR seeks to promote transatlantic friendship and cooperation. Jim DeMint, Director of Heritage Foundation in Washington DC, attended the AECR meeting and was presented with the Edmund Burke Prize of the Alliance. RNH has enjoyed a good relationship with Heritage Foundation, one of the most active and influential think tanks in the United States.
Daniel Hannan was keynote speaker at the annual conference of the European Students for Liberty, ESFL, in Berlin 10–12 April 2015, arguing that libertarians should be sceptical about further European integration. RNH Academic Director Professor Hannes H. Gissurarson also spoke at the conference. Daniel Hannan runs a popular website, publishing his articles and speeches. He has published a book on the Anglo-Saxon political tradition, Inventing Freedom, which will be the subject of an RNH conference in Iceland in the spring of 2016, where scholars will compare the Anglo-Saxon and Nordic political traditions. Shortly after Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson was elected AECR Vice President, he published, with Swiss MP Thomas Aeschi, an article in the Telegraph, that there was life outside the EU, as Switzerland, Norway and Iceland showed, enjoying the perks of the European market without the burden of the EU.
