Reception of the Consular Corps

Monday, 5. February 2018,11:00 - 13:00 o' clock

Restaurant Hofbräukeller at Wienerplatz, Maximimilianstube

The year 2017 is only a few days past. It remained unfinished because important things have not yet been completed, such as the formation of a government in Germany, the peace process in the Middle East or the European response to the flight of many people from their homeland. We all hope to find solutions in the new year.

This year the OstWestWirtschaftsForum Bayern will be fifty years old. There have been more difficult times than today. History cannot be summed up on a twitter cycle, but only in longer periods of time. We are therefore confident that we will be able to make small steps forward again in 2018.

At our suggestion, a peace game of the U18 youth national teams of the German and the Russian Football Association will take place on 8 May 2018 in the newly built World Cup arena in Volgograd. It is intended to commemorate the end of the Battle of Stalingrad 75 years ago.

In 2018, we also think of the end of the First World War 100 years ago, which brought about a complete transformation of the political map of Central and South-Eastern Europe. The comparison of these two days of remembrance alone shows how history has developed much more positively in our generation than in previous generations.

Today, there are again tendencies, understandably not least because of the historical developments in this area over the past 100 years, to withdraw to national solutions. However, the countries of Europe will only have a global opportunity if they agree on the common foundations of Europe and avoid national paths of their own.

That is precisely why we would like to support the EU Danube Strategy, including the Western Balkans and Ukraine, and also focus our interest on Poland and Belarus.

However, we also want to give an outlook on our activities in 2018 and point out perspectives for further cooperation.