The annual Independence Address is delivered by a prominent and well-known (inter)national authority, be it a politician, scientist, opinion leader or journalist who, by virtue of function, position, or insight, can contribute to the interpretation of developments in thinking about independence.

The first address was delivered on 26 July 2018 by Piet Hein Donner, then vice-chairman of the Council of State. In 2019 the Dutch minister of state and former vice-prime minister Jan Terlouw delivered the address as did the former Belgian prime-minister and president of the Council of Europe Herman van Rompuy in 2020. EU-correspondent for NRC Caroline de Gruyter spoke in 2021 and in 2022 the famous Ukrainian writer Andrej Kurkov delivered the Dutch Independence Address. On 26 July ‘23 the former President of Latvia, Mrs. Vaira Vike-Freiberga, delivered the sixth Dutch Independence Address. In ’24 it was Professor Afshin Ellian who spoke on “state independence: between Ummah en nation-state”.