Nach der Krise? – Aus der Finanzkrise lernen: Was war und was noch kommen wird
11.03.2010
*Tom Koenigs in conversation with Professor Reinhard H. Schmidt, Moderation: Peter Siller*
The Research Network `The Formation of Normative Orders’ of the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and the Frankfurter Kunstverein were pleased to announce the first Frankfurt Encounter, which took place in the Café im Kunstverein at the Steinernes Haus am Römerberg. Each Encounter featured two stimulating guests thinking aloud and discussing current issues of social development at the interface between science, politics and culture.
The first Encounter did not only ask what the events of the past year have taught us about the financial system. It also asked what lessons the crisis can teach us about our social order. Is the moral of the crisis also a crisis of morality? Tom Koenigs served for many years as Frankfurt city treasurer and as an expert in human rights policy. His experience extends from local politics to the international financial system. Professor Reinhard H. Schmidt has been recognised for decades as one of the leading experts on the German and international financial system. Thus the first Encounter promised to be a highly instructive open exchange between two outstanding personalities.
*Tom Koenigs* (* 25 January 1944) intimate knowledge of financial policy issues is not only based on his function as Frankfurt city treasurer between 1993 and 1997. Following his career as a head of department in the Frankfurt city administration he has assumed outstanding functions in international politics. As a deputy special representative of the Secretary-General of the United Nations in Kosovo, he had responsibility for the construction of the local civil administration. In 2002 Koenigs was sent as Special Representative to Guatemala in the role of Chief of the United Nations peacekeeping mission, where he had responsibility for monitoring the observance of the peace treaty between the former parties to the civil war. In 2005 he moved to the German Foreign Ministry as Commissioner for Human Rights Policy and Humanitarian Aid. From February 2006 to 2007 he served as UN Special Representative for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. Currently he is a member of the Bundestag where he is chairman of the human rights committee.
*Reinhard H. Schmidt* (* 1946) is Professor of International Banking and Finance at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and is the author of numerous publications on the German and international financial system. His primary research interests are institutional economics, the strategies and structures of international companies, financial theory, financial systems in industrial and developing countries and development finance. Among his publications are: Reinhard H. Schmidt, Luisa Anderloni and David Llewellyn, Financial Innovations (Edward Elgar, 2008); Jan Pieter Krahnen and Reinhard H. Schmidt, The German Financial System (Oxford University Press, 2004).
*Peter Siller* (* 1970) is Scientific Manager of the Cluster of Excellence `The Formation of Normative Orders’ at the Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Formerly he was the director of the domestic divisions of the Heinrich Böll Foundation and a member of the planning staff at the German Foreign Ministry. He studied law and philosophy. In addition he is founder and managing editor of the journal `polar’ which appears twice yearly in the Campus Verlag (www.polar-zeitschrift.de). He numerous publications on political philosophy and practice include `Rechtsphilosophische Kontroversen der Gegenwart’ (1999), `Politik als Inszenierung’ (2000), `Zukunft der Programmpartei’ (2002), `Arbeit der Zukunft’ (2006), `Politik der Gerechtigkeit’ (2009).
A series of events of the Cluster of Excellence `The Formation of Normative Orders’ in collaboration with the Frankfurter Kunstverein.