Forum démocrate hongrois
The Pan-European Picnic itself developed from a meeting between Otto von Habsburg and Ferenc Mészáros of the Hungarian Democratic Forum (MDF) in June 1989. The local organisation in Sopron took over the Hungarian Democratic Forum, the other contacts were made via Habsburg and the Hungarian Minister of State Imre Pozsgay. The Austrian Paneuropean Union and the MDF took care of advertising the event with leaflets that were distributed in Hungary. The patrons of the picnic, Habsburg and Pozsgay, who were not present at the event, saw the planned event as an opportunity to test Mikhail Gorbachev's reaction to an opening of the border on the Iron Curtain.