Video transcript
The Prague Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation was established on August 21, 1990 – exactly 22 years after the Prague Spring uprising was crushed by Warsaw Pact forces – and became the foundation’s first-ever office abroad. It coordinates the foundation’s regional activities in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary.
The Heinrich Böll Foundation is a political foundation with its headquarters in Berlin, Germany, and offices in more than 30 countries worldwide.
It is affiliated with the Green Party Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, but operates independently of the party and the Bundestag parliamentary group. At the same time, it is part of the broader Green movement, which has developed through engagement with the traditional political worldviews of socialism, liberalism, and conservatism.
Our namesake, the writer and Nobel laureate Heinrich Böll, personifies the values we stand for: defense of freedom, civic courage, tolerance, open debate, and the appreciation of art and culture as independent spheres of thought and action.
Together with our partners, we create projects to advocate for democracy and human rights, to oppose the destruction of the environment, to resolve conflicts through civil means, and to ensure the just, green transition of the economy and society.
Prague Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation
The Prague Office of the Heinrich Böll Foundation was established on August 21, 1990 – exactly 22 years after the Prague Spring uprising was crushed by Warsaw Pact forces – and became the foundation’s first-ever office abroad.
The Prague office coordinates the foundation’s regional activities in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. We work on the challenges of European integration, democracy and human rights in the region and in Europe, energy policy and climate protection, foreign and security policy, as well as on gender democracy. We aim to strengthen our partner organizations from civil society across Central and Eastern Europe, and to foster political and expert dialogue within the region and at the EU level.
We cooperate with a broad range of actors — from activists and academics to politicians, experts, and journalists — in the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary. Our main areas of focus are ecology, democracy, and foreign and security policy.
Ecology
Our goal is to raise awareness of the risks posed by climate change and the urgent need for a just green transition, with a focus on phasing out fossil fuels and prioritizing renewable energy over nuclear power. We support community energy initiatives, efforts to end energy poverty, effective communication about the climate crisis, and a just transition for coal regions. We pay special attention to women and other marginalized groups whose needs are often overlooked in climate- and energy-related debates and policies.
Democracy
In the field of democracy, we work to strengthen civil society, independent media, decision-makers, and marginalized groups that are striving to defend and enhance the rule of law, media freedom, gender democracy, as well as the rights of women, LGBTIQ people and other groups affected by structural discrimination.
Through cooperation on capacity-building activities, networking, expert events, study trips, publications, and other formats, we aim to enhance the knowledge, skills, and influence of our partners. We also help them establish platforms for exchange and collaboration across the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, and other EU member states. We pay special attention to developments in Hungary, where we support democratic voices and raise awareness across Europe about critical political trends that affect not only Hungarian society but also our shared democratic space.
Foreign and security policy
We contribute to current debates on foreign and security policies across the region, emphasizing the importance of human rights, sustainability, and multilateralism in international relations. Our focus includes advancing feminist foreign policy and climate foreign policy in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. We provide impetus for debates on these policies and work with experts to develop proposals on how to put these approaches into practice. Additionally, we support education and international exchange on foreign and security policy, especially through study trips, publications, and expert meetings.
Contact details
Our office is located at Jugoslávská 567/16, 3rd floor, 120 00 Prague 2, Czech Republic. You can reach us by email at info@cz.boell.org or by phone at +420 251 814 174.