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Allianz Alumni debate Europe's future

Allianz Cultural Foundation | Berlin | Oct 25, 2012

The Allianz Cultural Foundation’s Alumni Academy event in Berlin sparked intense discussion about Europe’s volatile present and uncertain future.

At the end of September 2012 the Allianz Cultural Foundation hosted its third Alumni Academy in Berlin. The seventy delegates from 17 countries were drawn from former participants in one of the Summer Academies that the Cultural Foundation offers jointly with 13 European universities at the Allianz Group Management Institute.

They included an advisor to the President of the European Parliament and the head of the European Commission's Social Media Department, as well as Allianz alumni working for NATO and the European Employers' Association.

The program the alumni had designed with the support of the Foundation included debate and discussion on entrepreneurial thinking and social commitment while the main focus of the Academy's second day was the European financial crisis and European integration.

This discussion panel brought together a representative of the German Finance Ministry, Martin Heipertz, Dr. Kay Müller, Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Allianz Real Estate, Pythagoras Petratos, a Professor at Oxford University and a Greek national, and the journalist Marcus Walker from The Wall Street Journal. However, since this panel was convened under Chatham House Rules, none of the panelists could be quoted by name.

One participant strongly criticized Germany's attitude towards the debt crisis, claiming that neither the media nor politicians clearly explain to the German population exactly how much Germany is benefitting from Europe.

By contrast, another participant emphasized the catalytic effect of the financial crisis that had enabled reforms to be pushed through in a very short space of time - something that no-one had previously even thought possible.

One of the panelists compared the prerequisites of successful political reform with those of a successful company, identifying a great many similarities. Unless stakeholders are ready for change, he argued, any restructuring efforts are doomed to fail.

However, an expert on Greece had not yet been able to detect the mental shift that would be required in this respect. At the same time he pointed out that in Greece there are certain social areas and companies that work efficiently, but that are not supported in any way.

Allianz Alumni debate Europe’s future
On the final day, when an alumna from Spanish Galicia started playing her native instrument, the bagpipes that had been passed down in her family for generations, all political debates were silenced.
Allianz Alumni debate Europe’s future

The Allianz Cultural Foundation’s Alumni Academy event in Berlin sparked intense discussion about Europe’s volatile present and uncertain future.

European integration

The final panel of the day dealt with the question of which model of gradual integration is suited to Europe today.

Janis Emmanouilidis from the European Policy Centre in Brussels listed a dozen different models, calling for a pragmatic approach to integration. He argued that, fuelled by the financial crisis, there are now certain tendencies towards renationalization that jeopardize the very core of the European model.

Roderick Parkes from the Polish Institute of International Affairs attempted to explain the defensive stance of his British compatriots who see European integration as a threat to their national sovereignty.

Arnoldas Pranckevicius, advisor to the President of the European Parliament, stressed the great number of country groups in the EU that tend to frequently reorganize and regroup depending on current interests.

As a consequence, the alumnus of the Allianz Cultural Foundation argued, "differentiated integration" is already a fact, not a question of political attitude.

The debates between alumni and panelists clearly showed to what extent Europe has already become a given for the "Erasmus generation", both as its natural habitat and as an international labor market. However, many of them regretted the lack of visionary force and optimism on the part of politicians.

"Our alumni are well aware that the background to the financial crisis is both a political and a psychological one and that there are no ready-made solutions," said the co-founder of the Allianz Summer Academy, Felipe Basabé from Catalonia. "The social and civil society dimension of the European project must be strengthened to guarantee its sustainability."

On the final day, when an alumna from Spanish Galicia started playing her native instrument, the bagpipes that had been passed down in her family for generations, all political debates were silenced.

Playing solo on the Allianz Forum stage, she gave a voice to the Celtic vision of Europe, performing songs from three different countries and prompting a participant from Eastern Europe to ask: "Why are we always this impatient? After all, what are 50 years of the European Community compared with more than two thousand years of European history?"

(by Michael Thoss, Director of the Allianz Kulturstiftung)

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