Alpbach Panorama | EFA 2020

A M AG A Z I N E O F T H E E U R O P E A N F O RUM A L P BAC H

AU G U ST 2 0 2 0

ALPBACH PANORAMA

Fundamentals Essays by Alexander Van der Bellen, Mariana Mazzucato, Karl Markovics and more 75 Years European Forum Alpbach / Artists in Discourse / The Work of Andrea Salzmann

European Forum Alpbach Association PRINCIPAL PARTNER

EVENT PARTNERS

MEDIA PARTNERS

PARTNERS

The European Forum Alpbach says thank you!

This year we are especially grateful to all our partners’ support.

Thank you for remaining loyal to the European Forum Alpbach and for being flexible in a year full of changes and challenges. Together we will continue to build on the fundamentals of democracy, European unity, solidarity and dialogue. Let us stay strong together, help those in need and show the world what the Village of Thinkers is made of. The European Forum Alpbach is not “just” a conference. Alpbach is wherever you are and wherever you act in the spirit of a united Europe and a solidary world.

SUPPORTING PARTNERS

NETWORK AND SCIENTIFIC PARTNERS

European Forum Alpbach Foundation #efatec ORGANISERS

MAIN BENEFACTORS

SCIENTIFIC PARTNER

INDUSTRIAL PARTNER

COOPERATION PARTNERS

BENEFACTORS

MEDIA PARTNER

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

PARTNERS

CONTRIBUTORS

Partners as of June, 2020

Austrian Development Agency Boston Consulting Group Club Alpbach Steiermark Elsevier

Gesellschaft Österreich Ungarn Hirsch Beteiligungs GmbH Lions Club Wels Lions Club Zillertal

Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation Raiffeisen Bank International AG Stiftung Fürstlicher Kommerzienrat Guido Feger

European Forum Alpbach Association PRINCIPAL PARTNER

EVENT PARTNERS

MEDIA PARTNERS

PARTNERS

The European Forum Alpbach says thank you!

This year we are especially grateful to all our partners’ support.

Thank you for remaining loyal to the European Forum Alpbach and for being flexible in a year full of changes and challenges. Together we will continue to build on the fundamentals of democracy, European unity, solidarity and dialogue. Let us stay strong together, help those in need and show the world what the Village of Thinkers is made of. The European Forum Alpbach is not “just” a conference. Alpbach is wherever you are and wherever you act in the spirit of a united Europe and a solidary world.

SUPPORTING PARTNERS

NETWORK AND SCIENTIFIC PARTNERS

European Forum Alpbach Foundation #efatec ORGANISERS

MAIN BENEFACTORS

SCIENTIFIC PARTNER

INDUSTRIAL PARTNER

COOPERATION PARTNERS

BENEFACTORS

MEDIA PARTNER

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY PARTNER

PARTNERS

CONTRIBUTORS

Partners as of June, 2020

Austrian Development Agency Boston Consulting Group Club Alpbach Steiermark Elsevier

Gesellschaft Österreich Ungarn Hirsch Beteiligungs GmbH Lions Club Wels Lions Club Zillertal

Lung Yingtai Cultural Foundation Raiffeisen Bank International AG Stiftung Fürstlicher Kommerzienrat Guido Feger

HOW TO EFA 2020

The effects of the pandemic are a challenge to all of us.

This does not exclude the European Forum Alpbach.

Because the health and safety of our participants, speakers, employees and volunteers is our first priority, we needed to completely reinvent ourselves this year.

Coverphoto: Wolfgang Pfaundler Pen drawing by Paul Flora from the book "Manifestation of the spirit of a European generation" (1952) © www.paulflora.at & www.paulflora-rechte.com

Only a small group of people, who are directly contributing to this year’s programme and members of the press with a valid accreditation can be on site in Alpbach during the Forum 2020. It will not be possible to buy a ticket for on-site participation in Alpbach this year.

EUROPEAN FORUM ALPBACH FUNDAMENTALS 2 3 AU G U S T– 0 3 SE P T E M B E R

EFA goes digital – Be a part of it!

Dear Readers!

BEHIND THE SCENES SONJA JÖCHTL AND PHILIPPE NARVAL

2

A NEW START ALEXANDER VAN DER BELLEN

6

EVER CLOSER UNION SONJA PUNTSCHER-RIEKMANN 8

We are planning our first online conference with a large number of events and high-level speakers from all over the world and we would like you to join us!

COVID’S IMPACT ON SECURITY JOHANN FRANK AND LEYLA DASKIN 12 IS CHINA RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PANDEMIC? SUSANNE WEIGELIN-SCHWIEDRZIK

16

RESTARTING THE ECONOMY AFTER COVID-19 KAREN HORN, PASCAL LAMY, GABRIEL FELBERMAYR, LISA HANZL, JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

18

CHINA: FROM CRISIS TO CONSOLIDATION MARKUS HERRMANN AND JOST WÜBBEKE

22

FLAGS OF THE FORUM

26

PERKS OF DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY PETER GANTEN

30

BUILDING RESILIENCE IN A POST-COVID AFRICA OYINDAMOLA ADEGBOYE, THOKOZANI CHILENGA-BUTAO AND PRITCHARD MUKUKA

32

ARTISTS IN DISCOURSE KARL MARKOVICS AND LISA KALTENEGGER

34

RE:THINK ALLIANCES ANNAMÁRIA TÓTH

38

There will be 12 days of programme curated by the EFA, the Forum Alpbach Network and various partners around the globe. There will be frequent opportunity to actively participate, ask questions and network within the conference website.

As soon as you have bought your ticket you will receive an access code to the conference website. For regular updates, please register for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn.

THE PATH TO COVID RECOVERY 40 MARIANA MAZZUCATO, GEORGE DIBB AND MARTHA MCPHERSON FORUM ALPBACH NETWORK

WHAT MAKES US CARE? FAITH OSIER

43

WRITING COMPETITION

49

75 YEARS EFA MONIKA PLATZER, EFA ARCHIVE

52

THE SPEAKERS‘ LIBRARY

62

FORUM ALPBACH AROUND THE GLOBE

64

THE ASSOCIATION

66

45

Buy your ticket now: 2020.alpbach.org

The world has changed and will probably never return to its pre-coronavirus state. The pandemic caused a rupture in our societies in a way they have not experienced since the end of World War II. The most obvious changes became palpable in our daily lives.

We could not go where we wanted, hug our friends, go to work or engage in leisure activities the way we were used to. Even now that the worst part of the pandemic seems to be over in the majority of the world there are still people who must fear for their health and the lives of their loved ones. At the same time almost everyone will feel some financial repercussions of the pandemic, many will even suffer from unemployment and poverty. The images we saw on the news in the spring of 2020, the coffins, graves in public parks, the stories of people losing everything they had or dying alone in isolation will be a traumatic memory to all of us. So how could the world ever be like it was before?

At the same time the fight against the coronavirus has united the world community in an unprecedented way. Not even the quests for lasting global peace, ending world hunger or stopping climate change have managed to bring us together the way the coronacrisis did, even though all of these issues are much more threatening to mankind in the long run.

But this was not the only Corona crisis.

The past months have also seen the rise of

scientists who became the most important source of information for politicians and other decision-makers when it came to dealing with the crisis. After so many haves got convinced in the last years that “good populism” is the only effective defense against “bad populism”, facts celebrated a comeback as the basis of sustainable decisions, at least for now.

There still is a lot we do not know about life after the pandemic. What is the world going to look like when a vaccine is found? Who is going to get it first or at all? How are we going to deal with the economic crisis that follows? Will the collective shock of the pandemic, that feels like a small apocalypse, be a wake-up call to all of us? Will we emerge from this crisis as a community that wants to do better, cooperate more and live a more sustainable and conscious life? What will the new Fundamentals of the world we need to rebuild be? Are our political systems going to be able to adapt to the new reality? And if they cannot adapt, what kind of power shifts can we expect?

Despite of all the uncertainties awaiting us on our way forward, the European Forum Alpbach still believes in the ability of our societies to change for the better. Shared interests of the world community exist and the Corona crisis has revealed a secret to us: It is possible for people of all kinds of different backgrounds

1

to stand united behind a common goal. Today this goal is fighting the spread and the consequences of the virus, tomorrow it could be anything we want it to be.

In its 75th year of existence the Forum’s debate will revolve around the general topic Fundamentals. In our first online conference we will once again gather international experts, decision-makers from all sectors, students and everyone who is interested in a mind-stretching experience. Together we will discuss how to come back from this crisis and how to guarantee for a better life for all in the future.

We hope that the “Alpbach Panorama” is an inspiring read to you. We thank you for your continuous interest, support, and trust and for being a part of our ever more global Alpbach community.

FRANZ FISCHLER, CASPAR EINEM, SONJA PUNTSCHER-RIEKMANN, CLAUS RAIDL Executive Board of the European Forum Alpbach PHILIPPE NARVAL Secretary General of the European Forum Alpbach SONJA JÖCHTL Managing Director of the Foundation European Forum Alpbach CHARLOTTE STEENBERGEN Chief Operating Officer of the Association European Forum Alpbach

HOW TO EFA 2020

The effects of the pandemic are a challenge to all of us.

This does not exclude the European Forum Alpbach.

Because the health and safety of our participants, speakers, employees and volunteers is our first priority, we needed to completely reinvent ourselves this year.

Coverphoto: Wolfgang Pfaundler Pen drawing by Paul Flora from the book "Manifestation of the spirit of a European generation" (1952) © www.paulflora.at & www.paulflora-rechte.com

Only a small group of people, who are directly contributing to this year’s programme and members of the press with a valid accreditation can be on site in Alpbach during the Forum 2020. It will not be possible to buy a ticket for on-site participation in Alpbach this year.

EUROPEAN FORUM ALPBACH FUNDAMENTALS 2 3 AU G U S T– 0 3 SE P T E M B E R

EFA goes digital – Be a part of it!

Dear Readers!

BEHIND THE SCENES SONJA JÖCHTL AND PHILIPPE NARVAL

2

A NEW START ALEXANDER VAN DER BELLEN

6

EVER CLOSER UNION SONJA PUNTSCHER-RIEKMANN 8

We are planning our first online conference with a large number of events and high-level speakers from all over the world and we would like you to join us!

COVID’S IMPACT ON SECURITY JOHANN FRANK AND LEYLA DASKIN 12 IS CHINA RESPONSIBLE FOR THE PANDEMIC? SUSANNE WEIGELIN-SCHWIEDRZIK

16

RESTARTING THE ECONOMY AFTER COVID-19 KAREN HORN, PASCAL LAMY, GABRIEL FELBERMAYR, LISA HANZL, JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ

18

CHINA: FROM CRISIS TO CONSOLIDATION MARKUS HERRMANN AND JOST WÜBBEKE

22

FLAGS OF THE FORUM

26

PERKS OF DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY PETER GANTEN

30

BUILDING RESILIENCE IN A POST-COVID AFRICA OYINDAMOLA ADEGBOYE, THOKOZANI CHILENGA-BUTAO AND PRITCHARD MUKUKA

32

ARTISTS IN DISCOURSE KARL MARKOVICS AND LISA KALTENEGGER

34

RE:THINK ALLIANCES ANNAMÁRIA TÓTH

38

There will be 12 days of programme curated by the EFA, the Forum Alpbach Network and various partners around the globe. There will be frequent opportunity to actively participate, ask questions and network within the conference website.

As soon as you have bought your ticket you will receive an access code to the conference website. For regular updates, please register for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn.

THE PATH TO COVID RECOVERY 40 MARIANA MAZZUCATO, GEORGE DIBB AND MARTHA MCPHERSON FORUM ALPBACH NETWORK

WHAT MAKES US CARE? FAITH OSIER

43

WRITING COMPETITION

49

75 YEARS EFA MONIKA PLATZER, EFA ARCHIVE

52

THE SPEAKERS‘ LIBRARY

62

FORUM ALPBACH AROUND THE GLOBE

64

THE ASSOCIATION

66

45

Buy your ticket now: 2020.alpbach.org

The world has changed and will probably never return to its pre-coronavirus state. The pandemic caused a rupture in our societies in a way they have not experienced since the end of World War II. The most obvious changes became palpable in our daily lives.

We could not go where we wanted, hug our friends, go to work or engage in leisure activities the way we were used to. Even now that the worst part of the pandemic seems to be over in the majority of the world there are still people who must fear for their health and the lives of their loved ones. At the same time almost everyone will feel some financial repercussions of the pandemic, many will even suffer from unemployment and poverty. The images we saw on the news in the spring of 2020, the coffins, graves in public parks, the stories of people losing everything they had or dying alone in isolation will be a traumatic memory to all of us. So how could the world ever be like it was before?

At the same time the fight against the coronavirus has united the world community in an unprecedented way. Not even the quests for lasting global peace, ending world hunger or stopping climate change have managed to bring us together the way the coronacrisis did, even though all of these issues are much more threatening to mankind in the long run.

But this was not the only Corona crisis.

The past months have also seen the rise of

scientists who became the most important source of information for politicians and other decision-makers when it came to dealing with the crisis. After so many haves got convinced in the last years that “good populism” is the only effective defense against “bad populism”, facts celebrated a comeback as the basis of sustainable decisions, at least for now.

There still is a lot we do not know about life after the pandemic. What is the world going to look like when a vaccine is found? Who is going to get it first or at all? How are we going to deal with the economic crisis that follows? Will the collective shock of the pandemic, that feels like a small apocalypse, be a wake-up call to all of us? Will we emerge from this crisis as a community that wants to do better, cooperate more and live a more sustainable and conscious life? What will the new Fundamentals of the world we need to rebuild be? Are our political systems going to be able to adapt to the new reality? And if they cannot adapt, what kind of power shifts can we expect?

Despite of all the uncertainties awaiting us on our way forward, the European Forum Alpbach still believes in the ability of our societies to change for the better. Shared interests of the world community exist and the Corona crisis has revealed a secret to us: It is possible for people of all kinds of different backgrounds

1

to stand united behind a common goal. Today this goal is fighting the spread and the consequences of the virus, tomorrow it could be anything we want it to be.

In its 75th year of existence the Forum’s debate will revolve around the general topic Fundamentals. In our first online conference we will once again gather international experts, decision-makers from all sectors, students and everyone who is interested in a mind-stretching experience. Together we will discuss how to come back from this crisis and how to guarantee for a better life for all in the future.

We hope that the “Alpbach Panorama” is an inspiring read to you. We thank you for your continuous interest, support, and trust and for being a part of our ever more global Alpbach community.

FRANZ FISCHLER, CASPAR EINEM, SONJA PUNTSCHER-RIEKMANN, CLAUS RAIDL Executive Board of the European Forum Alpbach PHILIPPE NARVAL Secretary General of the European Forum Alpbach SONJA JÖCHTL Managing Director of the Foundation European Forum Alpbach CHARLOTTE STEENBERGEN Chief Operating Officer of the Association European Forum Alpbach

“IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE PEOPLE STICK TOGETHER WHEN TIMES ARE GETTING TOUGH.” S O N JA J Ö C H T L A N D P H I L I P P E NA RVA L

We don’t want to lie to you. Planning a European Forum Alpbach in the middle of the Corona chaos is absolutely insane.

When this issue of the “Alpbach Panorama” goes into print we will not only have lists of what is happening when and where and who is going to be here, but there will be lists of all the lists we have to organise this year’s conference. We will have spent weeks on the phone and in video calls with each other, our partners, speakers and the many friends and supporters of the EFA all around the globe.

There were days during this time that our team will be happy to forget and never think of again. However, there are also parts of this wild journey that we want to remember. One of them is how we got here. EFA Secretary General Philippe Narval and Sonja Jöchtl, Director of the EFA Foundation, share their thoughts on how we ended up planning the first EFA online conference. A story of confusion, doubt, courage, and idealism.

2

“IT IS OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE PEOPLE STICK TOGETHER WHEN TIMES ARE GETTING TOUGH.” S O N JA J Ö C H T L A N D P H I L I P P E NA RVA L

We don’t want to lie to you. Planning a European Forum Alpbach in the middle of the Corona chaos is absolutely insane.

When this issue of the “Alpbach Panorama” goes into print we will not only have lists of what is happening when and where and who is going to be here, but there will be lists of all the lists we have to organise this year’s conference. We will have spent weeks on the phone and in video calls with each other, our partners, speakers and the many friends and supporters of the EFA all around the globe.

There were days during this time that our team will be happy to forget and never think of again. However, there are also parts of this wild journey that we want to remember. One of them is how we got here. EFA Secretary General Philippe Narval and Sonja Jöchtl, Director of the EFA Foundation, share their thoughts on how we ended up planning the first EFA online conference. A story of confusion, doubt, courage, and idealism.

2

PHILIPPE: First of all, it’s important to state that it took enormous effort for all of us to manage the reorganisation while working from home. Remote work is fine for standard processes, but really challenging when major change happens in an organisation and when creativity is needed. In any case, planning the EFA 2020 was not just crisis and its mitigation. It was a complete reinvention of what we do. Normally, organisations need twelve months’ time to do such a thing, it took us two months to lay the tracks. From one day to the next we decided to completely rethink our concept. This was and still is exhausting for the organisation as a whole. But we owe it to our 75-year-tradition to make this effort.

Kudos, Sonja! A lot of this was you!

SONJA: It was never an option to completely cancel the Forum. If our founders were capable of holding a Forum only months after World War II, it is clear that we must be capable as well. Our responsibility is making people stick together when times are getting tough.

When we started imagining the world in August — when the Forum is supposed to take place — it was only mid-March.

PHILIPPE: Back then, Franz Fischler, President of the Forum, predicted that the world will experience the highest unemployment rates it had ever seen. He said, the economy will suffer immensely and many will not make it until the end of the year. He was absolutely right.

SONJA: If we had decided to skip a year and let someone else deal with the pressing questions resulting from this situation, we would have forfeited our whole purpose.

PHILIPPE: I agree, giving up and cancelling

the Forum Alpbach in 2020 was not an option.

SONJA: While this was clear from the start, it took quite some time to switch from the manifold problems and how to solve them, to being able to see the potential that this situation offered. When I first talked to our Forum Alpbach Network — the young alumni members — there was still a lot of doubt. We weren’t sure if we have the guts to try something so new. Some said: “Why not focus on the things we know we can do, no matter what happens in August?”. They

wanted to focus on a minimalistic version with the least risk involved. At the time I still felt a strong resistance within myself.

PHILIPPE: Did you? I thought you had this vision all along and it was just me who didn’t feel it right away.

SONJA: No. It took me quite some time until I thought: “Let’s not just try to compromise, let’s do everything we can.”.

PHILIPPE: One of the main things we’re trying out this year, is to further democratise the programming process and this is where the crisis becomes an opportunity for us.

We wanted to include the young people in the Forum Alpbach community more in the programme process for a long time already — on eye level! But somehow this always turned out to be very difficult for us due to manifold reasons. We needed a framework first, which we created this year. All of a sudden, we got 150 submissions from members of the Forum Alpbach Network (FAN) all over the world. They sent us suggestions for sessions that make me ask myself: “Wow.

“It was never an option to completely cancel the Forum. If our founders were capable of holding a Forum only months after World War II, it is clear that we must be capable as well.”

P H I L I P P E NA RVA L

4

“We can give people a voice within the Forum now without having to fly each and everyone around the world at the cost of the environment.”

S O N JA J Ö C H T L

Why didn’t we think of that before?”, and I believe we should find a way to continue with this path after the Corona crisis. It is an opportunity to allow for many more people to contribute to the Forum than can actually participate physically in the village of Alpbach normally. We couldn’t bring all of our awesome alumni to Alpbach every year if we wanted. But we can bring a bit of Alpbach to them wherever they are. Also, the way we work with the FAN now would not have been possible 10 years ago, because the Forum was not that international back then, now there are alumni all over Africa and Asia for example who are contributing.

SONJA: Without the coronavirus, this would never have been possible now either. We would never have been able to convince everybody of how important this inclusive approach is. Even though we wanted to achieve something like this for a long time.

Another thing we thought about for years was: How can we get as many people of the Alpbach community to Alpbach without actually putting them on a flight to come to Alpbach? The implications for our climate with flying in speakers for two days for a

panel discussion are always on our minds!

At the moment there is huge potential to solve this.

PHILIPPE: Also, because the expectations of the audience changed with Corona. I believe next year there will be a higher acceptance within a live audience if a keynote speaker is involved in remote video. We can give people a voice within the Forum now without having to fly each and everyone around the world at the cost of the environment.

SONJA: Basically, this year’s conference is going to be special for many reasons. It is a unique chance for everyone who always wished to check out the Forum but couldn’t due to travelling, financial or other reasons.

It is a great opportunity to access all of this super know-how, the knowledge pool the Forum has, at a much lower hurdle than usual.

PHILIPPE: I can only decide to buy a ticket after I saw the programme. I would advise everyone to look through all the topics and speakers we offer on our homepage. If you are is interested in global affairs, the future of democracy, Europe and sustainability

5

issues, you will find it very exciting. Also, in terms of making sense and understanding a complex global crisis our conference will offer clarity and orientation. What makes Alpbach online different from e.g. a TED Talk is that you can really interact, ask questions, discuss in a live setting. I believe that this is rather unique in an event quite as long and with such an extensive programme.

SONJA: However, I still think it is not an event for everyone.

PHILIPPE: Of course not, you gotta be a bit of a nerd to join ...

SONJA JÖCHTL is Managing Director of the EFA Foundation and PHILIPPE NARVAL is Secretary General of the EFA

PHILIPPE: First of all, it’s important to state that it took enormous effort for all of us to manage the reorganisation while working from home. Remote work is fine for standard processes, but really challenging when major change happens in an organisation and when creativity is needed. In any case, planning the EFA 2020 was not just crisis and its mitigation. It was a complete reinvention of what we do. Normally, organisations need twelve months’ time to do such a thing, it took us two months to lay the tracks. From one day to the next we decided to completely rethink our concept. This was and still is exhausting for the organisation as a whole. But we owe it to our 75-year-tradition to make this effort.

Kudos, Sonja! A lot of this was you!

SONJA: It was never an option to completely cancel the Forum. If our founders were capable of holding a Forum only months after World War II, it is clear that we must be capable as well. Our responsibility is making people stick together when times are getting tough.

When we started imagining the world in August — when the Forum is supposed to take place — it was only mid-March.

PHILIPPE: Back then, Franz Fischler, President of the Forum, predicted that the world will experience the highest unemployment rates it had ever seen. He said, the economy will suffer immensely and many will not make it until the end of the year. He was absolutely right.

SONJA: If we had decided to skip a year and let someone else deal with the pressing questions resulting from this situation, we would have forfeited our whole purpose.

PHILIPPE: I agree, giving up and cancelling

the Forum Alpbach in 2020 was not an option.

SONJA: While this was clear from the start, it took quite some time to switch from the manifold problems and how to solve them, to being able to see the potential that this situation offered. When I first talked to our Forum Alpbach Network — the young alumni members — there was still a lot of doubt. We weren’t sure if we have the guts to try something so new. Some said: “Why not focus on the things we know we can do, no matter what happens in August?”. They

wanted to focus on a minimalistic version with the least risk involved. At the time I still felt a strong resistance within myself.

PHILIPPE: Did you? I thought you had this vision all along and it was just me who didn’t feel it right away.

SONJA: No. It took me quite some time until I thought: “Let’s not just try to compromise, let’s do everything we can.”.

PHILIPPE: One of the main things we’re trying out this year, is to further democratise the programming process and this is where the crisis becomes an opportunity for us.

We wanted to include the young people in the Forum Alpbach community more in the programme process for a long time already — on eye level! But somehow this always turned out to be very difficult for us due to manifold reasons. We needed a framework first, which we created this year. All of a sudden, we got 150 submissions from members of the Forum Alpbach Network (FAN) all over the world. They sent us suggestions for sessions that make me ask myself: “Wow.

“It was never an option to completely cancel the Forum. If our founders were capable of holding a Forum only months after World War II, it is clear that we must be capable as well.”

P H I L I P P E NA RVA L

4

“We can give people a voice within the Forum now without having to fly each and everyone around the world at the cost of the environment.”

S O N JA J Ö C H T L

Why didn’t we think of that before?”, and I believe we should find a way to continue with this path after the Corona crisis. It is an opportunity to allow for many more people to contribute to the Forum than can actually participate physically in the village of Alpbach normally. We couldn’t bring all of our awesome alumni to Alpbach every year if we wanted. But we can bring a bit of Alpbach to them wherever they are. Also, the way we work with the FAN now would not have been possible 10 years ago, because the Forum was not that international back then, now there are alumni all over Africa and Asia for example who are contributing.

SONJA: Without the coronavirus, this would never have been possible now either. We would never have been able to convince everybody of how important this inclusive approach is. Even though we wanted to achieve something like this for a long time.

Another thing we thought about for years was: How can we get as many people of the Alpbach community to Alpbach without actually putting them on a flight to come to Alpbach? The implications for our climate with flying in speakers for two days for a

panel discussion are always on our minds!

At the moment there is huge potential to solve this.

PHILIPPE: Also, because the expectations of the audience changed with Corona. I believe next year there will be a higher acceptance within a live audience if a keynote speaker is involved in remote video. We can give people a voice within the Forum now without having to fly each and everyone around the world at the cost of the environment.

SONJA: Basically, this year’s conference is going to be special for many reasons. It is a unique chance for everyone who always wished to check out the Forum but couldn’t due to travelling, financial or other reasons.

It is a great opportunity to access all of this super know-how, the knowledge pool the Forum has, at a much lower hurdle than usual.

PHILIPPE: I can only decide to buy a ticket after I saw the programme. I would advise everyone to look through all the topics and speakers we offer on our homepage. If you are is interested in global affairs, the future of democracy, Europe and sustainability

5

issues, you will find it very exciting. Also, in terms of making sense and understanding a complex global crisis our conference will offer clarity and orientation. What makes Alpbach online different from e.g. a TED Talk is that you can really interact, ask questions, discuss in a live setting. I believe that this is rather unique in an event quite as long and with such an extensive programme.

SONJA: However, I still think it is not an event for everyone.

PHILIPPE: Of course not, you gotta be a bit of a nerd to join ...

SONJA JÖCHTL is Managing Director of the EFA Foundation and PHILIPPE NARVAL is Secretary General of the EFA

A NEW START F E D E R A L P R E SI D E N T O F T H E R E P U B L IC O F AU S T R IA A L E X A N D E R VA N D E R B E L L E N

“Through what we do or do not do today, we can actively and consciously shape that time which today is still called future.”

Weeks and months have passed since the arrival of the coronavirus shook our societies to their very core. It was a hard time and we used all means possible to control this virus.

The medicine we had to swallow had a bitter aftertaste: isolation, restriction of personal rights, and a widespread standstill of our social, cultural, and economic life.

there will be a viable vaccination available.

We do not know exactly what next week or even next month will bring — for each of us individually, for society as a whole, for Europe, for the world. The prospect of economically turbulent times and a high unemployment rate understandably cause concern for many people.

The acute threat has been averted, but the danger is far from over. This is part of the uncertainties we are currently having to live with and which is troublesome for many.

But: We also have certainties. We have each other. Our community, our cohesion. We have our problem-solving skills. They will help us now, as they have in the past. And from that we will draw confidence.

We have no certainty as to when this pandemic will end. No one can say exactly when

I don’t believe it is possible for us to see yet what significance this crisis will have

6

the country, people are once again placing more trust in their own strength.

understand the value of science as a solid basis for our society and our decisions.

I believe that we will seize the opportunity in the crisis, overcome unemployment and make the turn towards a sustainable economy. With nature, not against it. For a healthy climate. When looking back, I hope we will be able to say that this crisis once again brought out the best in us.

And that is what it is all about.

I believe that this will be seen as the time when people have once again come to appreciate more deeply the value of solidarity, personal connection, and friendship. People who previously took little notice of their neighbours are suddenly there for each other.

To get supplies, to encourage each other. To sing and make music together.

I believe that the generations after us will see this as the time that brought out our good qualities. In which people in Austria relied on their own abilities and flexibility.

We already see this every day. Throughout

I believe that Europe too will make use of this time. After initial mistakes in the Union, we will rediscover the value of our political community. And we will be even more supportive of one another. We will once again

for our society. Just as it is impossible for a grain of sand to see the immensity of the desert. It will only be possible to recognise the meaning and significance, if at all possible, much later and in retrospect.

But through what we do or do not do today, we can actively and consciously shape that time which today is still called future.

What makes me so sure that this will happen?

We have succeeded in doing so before. We will manage this new start.

Because that’s how we are.

And that’s why we’re going to make this work.

7

ALEXANDER VAN DER BELLEN is Federal President of the Republic of Austria

A NEW START F E D E R A L P R E SI D E N T O F T H E R E P U B L IC O F AU S T R IA A L E X A N D E R VA N D E R B E L L E N

“Through what we do or do not do today, we can actively and consciously shape that time which today is still called future.”

Weeks and months have passed since the arrival of the coronavirus shook our societies to their very core. It was a hard time and we used all means possible to control this virus.

The medicine we had to swallow had a bitter aftertaste: isolation, restriction of personal rights, and a widespread standstill of our social, cultural, and economic life.

there will be a viable vaccination available.

We do not know exactly what next week or even next month will bring — for each of us individually, for society as a whole, for Europe, for the world. The prospect of economically turbulent times and a high unemployment rate understandably cause concern for many people.

The acute threat has been averted, but the danger is far from over. This is part of the uncertainties we are currently having to live with and which is troublesome for many.

But: We also have certainties. We have each other. Our community, our cohesion. We have our problem-solving skills. They will help us now, as they have in the past. And from that we will draw confidence.

We have no certainty as to when this pandemic will end. No one can say exactly when

I don’t believe it is possible for us to see yet what significance this crisis will have

6

the country, people are once again placing more trust in their own strength.

understand the value of science as a solid basis for our society and our decisions.

I believe that we will seize the opportunity in the crisis, overcome unemployment and make the turn towards a sustainable economy. With nature, not against it. For a healthy climate. When looking back, I hope we will be able to say that this crisis once again brought out the best in us.

And that is what it is all about.

I believe that this will be seen as the time when people have once again come to appreciate more deeply the value of solidarity, personal connection, and friendship. People who previously took little notice of their neighbours are suddenly there for each other.

To get supplies, to encourage each other. To sing and make music together.

I believe that the generations after us will see this as the time that brought out our good qualities. In which people in Austria relied on their own abilities and flexibility.

We already see this every day. Throughout

I believe that Europe too will make use of this time. After initial mistakes in the Union, we will rediscover the value of our political community. And we will be even more supportive of one another. We will once again

for our society. Just as it is impossible for a grain of sand to see the immensity of the desert. It will only be possible to recognise the meaning and significance, if at all possible, much later and in retrospect.

But through what we do or do not do today, we can actively and consciously shape that time which today is still called future.

What makes me so sure that this will happen?

We have succeeded in doing so before. We will manage this new start.

Because that’s how we are.

And that’s why we’re going to make this work.

7

ALEXANDER VAN DER BELLEN is Federal President of the Republic of Austria

“EVER CLOSER UNION”: STILL A EUROPEAN FUNDAMENTAL? S O N JA P U N T S C H E R- R I E K M A N N

The creation of the European polity rests on the founding myth of peace to be warranted by institutionalised cooperation of its members, delegation of selected powers to supranational organs, and decision-making in respect of the rule of law. While the openness of the project’s finalité yielded changing narratives on what Europe means to different generations of citizens and elites, the preamble of the treaty defined the trajectory as leading towards “ever closer union”. Apparently, this basic avowal is put into question today. But is it really?

8

Indeed, in the negotiations preceding the referendum the UK government pursued the elimination of the formula “ever closer union” from the treaty supposedly to appease Brexiteers. The EU did not budge and the referendum ended with a majority vote for Leave, its reasons being more complex than discontent with a treaty formula. However, long before Brexit as the first instance of disintegration the EU was faced with varieties of Euroscepticism incarnated in new or old transmuted political parties in many member states. Main stream incumbents reacted by proclaiming the need for institutional change while academics broached the requirement of a new European narrative. Euroscepticism came in different cloaks worn by different actors, but all concurred in scapegoating the EU for whatever they thought their clientele would define as political or societal deficiency.

In this vein, the EU is doing either too much or too little, in any case she is not a power for good. Such stances were and still are advocated in hard and soft terms, but they are an instance of “voice” underpinned by a minimum degree of “loyalty”, whereas it was for the UK to choose “exit”.

During the last three decades governing elites first took a great leap forward in Maastricht, then lost courage in the wake of negative or wafer-thin positive votes on treaty changes and finally muddled through the 1990s and the 2000s. The defeat of the Constitutional Treaty to accommodate the needs of enlargement in the French and Dutch referenda of 2005 was a major blow, although important provisions were enshrined in the Treaty of Lisbon. But until the financial and fiscal, crisis little was accomplished to complete monetary union by an economic, fiscal and political union.

And surreptitiously, governments begun to advocate new forms of intergovernmentalism to the detriment of supranational institutions. Intriguingly though, the result of new intergovernmentalism were more hybrid modes of governance, a constitutional monster made of simultaneous centralisation and fragmentation, of more integration by stealth and nationalist sovereignty posture.

The calls for a new European narrative that emerged from this conundrum started from the premise that the traditional narrative of peace, democracy, and rule of law had lost its appeal, while the narrative of prosperity had paled in the financial crisis and the narrative of security in the migration crisis.

Thus, the latest invention reads as “Europe that protects”. But different readers think of

9

different things they want protection from. In the unexpected Covid-19 pandemic the wish for health protection became paramount, although the EU has little competence in health policy. She could nonetheless be denounced as inefficient by national leaders who again grasped the opportunity to stylise themselves as saviours of their states as they had done in the migration crisis. This

“EVER CLOSER UNION”: STILL A EUROPEAN FUNDAMENTAL? S O N JA P U N T S C H E R- R I E K M A N N

The creation of the European polity rests on the founding myth of peace to be warranted by institutionalised cooperation of its members, delegation of selected powers to supranational organs, and decision-making in respect of the rule of law. While the openness of the project’s finalité yielded changing narratives on what Europe means to different generations of citizens and elites, the preamble of the treaty defined the trajectory as leading towards “ever closer union”. Apparently, this basic avowal is put into question today. But is it really?

8

Indeed, in the negotiations preceding the referendum the UK government pursued the elimination of the formula “ever closer union” from the treaty supposedly to appease Brexiteers. The EU did not budge and the referendum ended with a majority vote for Leave, its reasons being more complex than discontent with a treaty formula. However, long before Brexit as the first instance of disintegration the EU was faced with varieties of Euroscepticism incarnated in new or old transmuted political parties in many member states. Main stream incumbents reacted by proclaiming the need for institutional change while academics broached the requirement of a new European narrative. Euroscepticism came in different cloaks worn by different actors, but all concurred in scapegoating the EU for whatever they thought their clientele would define as political or societal deficiency.

In this vein, the EU is doing either too much or too little, in any case she is not a power for good. Such stances were and still are advocated in hard and soft terms, but they are an instance of “voice” underpinned by a minimum degree of “loyalty”, whereas it was for the UK to choose “exit”.

During the last three decades governing elites first took a great leap forward in Maastricht, then lost courage in the wake of negative or wafer-thin positive votes on treaty changes and finally muddled through the 1990s and the 2000s. The defeat of the Constitutional Treaty to accommodate the needs of enlargement in the French and Dutch referenda of 2005 was a major blow, although important provisions were enshrined in the Treaty of Lisbon. But until the financial and fiscal, crisis little was accomplished to complete monetary union by an economic, fiscal and political union.

And surreptitiously, governments begun to advocate new forms of intergovernmentalism to the detriment of supranational institutions. Intriguingly though, the result of new intergovernmentalism were more hybrid modes of governance, a constitutional monster made of simultaneous centralisation and fragmentation, of more integration by stealth and nationalist sovereignty posture.

The calls for a new European narrative that emerged from this conundrum started from the premise that the traditional narrative of peace, democracy, and rule of law had lost its appeal, while the narrative of prosperity had paled in the financial crisis and the narrative of security in the migration crisis.

Thus, the latest invention reads as “Europe that protects”. But different readers think of

9

different things they want protection from. In the unexpected Covid-19 pandemic the wish for health protection became paramount, although the EU has little competence in health policy. She could nonetheless be denounced as inefficient by national leaders who again grasped the opportunity to stylise themselves as saviours of their states as they had done in the migration crisis. This

is the posture chosen by the “frugal four” in the current negotiations of rescue funds, which are hardly the sign of a Hamiltonian moment in European history, as hailed by some commentators. Moreover, in May 2020 the German Federal Constitutional Court produced another ruling to assert national budgetary sovereignty, thus ignoring the need to conceive monetary policy for the eurozone as a whole and not only in line with German preferences. If this sketchy description of current developments is correct, the question about whether “ever closer union” is still a fundamental to Europeans, begs for a gloomy answer.

There is, however, also a bright side to the life of the Union. The Euro has survived a wicked crisis, while at last member states agreed on an intergovernmental rescue fund.

European legislators created a set of new provisions to regulate national fiscal policy and banks, whereas the European Central Bank morphed into the great stabiliser of the eurozone. Recently, Germany and France seem at last to act in concert to put in place large scale rescue operations to fight off the pandemic-induced economic downturn.

Brexit has so far not generated emulators, on the contrary, it has brought to life the “EU 27” who are united in preventing the UK from “cherry-picking” and in delegating the power to negotiate future relations to the Commission and Michel Barnier. Such consistency may be surprising but it is the result of a continuous inter-institutional dialogue at the European and the national level. Moreover, according to the latest Eurobarometer of 2019 citizens have either a positive (42%) or a neutral (37%) image of the Union, whereas only 20% see it negatively. Figures may fluctuate over time and mirror different sentiments in different countries, but they doubtlessly convey a general perception of the Union as something to be preserved, not dismantled. Moreover, trust in EU institutions is greater than in national institutions, while trust in the Euro is at an all-time high of 76% on average for the whole Euro area. Figures relating to satisfaction with democracy are more ambivalent: While

data regarding the question whether citizens believe that their voice counts at Union level decreased from 56% in spring to 45% in Autumn 2019, it conveys satisfaction with how democracy works in the Union (52% versus 40% of dissatisfied). Most remarkably, 70% of EU 28 respondents consider themselves as EU citizens.

These results do hardly suggest the end of the Union, but rather provoke another question: Are citizens keener to unify than their elites? Do the former outdo the latter in regarding the project of “ever closer union” as fundamental? A construct that needs constant improvement to build “a more perfect union”, but that is worthwhile pursuing because there is less “happiness” to be expected without it? While answers to these questions may be speculative, data concerning citizens’ expectations towards the EU’s capacity to act could be used as an indication for a bolder vision of its future: Two thirds of citizens want the EU to develop a common asylum policy and a reinforcement of external border control, a majority wishes a European policy for renewable energy and fighting plastic waste, 78% favour measures to ensure gender equality at the work place, while 57% support a single digital market.

This data draws a different picture of the EU than offered by the bickering of member states governments over asylum quota or money to be allocated to the EU for crisis management.

Finally, “ever closer union” does of course not spare European foreign and security policy.

Since the inception of European integration this chapter has always been a particularly difficult one. However, while today 70% of the citizens believe that the EU’s voice is heard in the world, Eurobarometer 2019 does not ask how they want the EU to act in a conflict-ridden world and on what scale of resources. We no longer live in quiet times: the multipolar world that seemed to replace the Cold War duopoly has waned in the new struggle for hegemony between the US and China. There are more conflicts looming large:

10

some in the immediate neighbourhood of the EU, some hot and some cold, some involving trade and currency wars, all of them threatening the liberal and multipolar world order.

Are European citizens and representatives prepared to herald and pay for the defence of such order, to invest in its institutions from the UN to the WTO, to develop peace-making and -keeping scenarios, last not least to risk conflict with its counterparts, in particular the US within NATO? Or do they prefer emulating other big powers by putting “Europe first”, for instance by building European industrial champions and thus disavowing competition policy as a pillar of the single market? Or utilising the Euro in global currency antagonisms? Whatever the answers to these questions, the EU may need a bold narrative about becoming an autonomous world power rather than remaining a quiet trade giant and a satellite of others in security and defence. Boldness was indeed the term used by the Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her inauguration speech before the European Parliament. And boldness in political, social, and economic terms is what we need to overcome the current crisis and to promote democracy, justice, and sustainability in Europe and the world.

Im 5Giganetz von A1.

Das 5Giganetz von A1, die beste Kombination aus größtem Glasfasernetz und schnellster 5G Technologie, bringt Ihrem Unternehmen immer den entscheidenden Vorsprung und ist der nächste Schritt für Ihren #BusinessChange.

SONJA PUNTSCHER-RIEKMANN is a university professor for political theory and EU politics at the University of Salzburg and a Vice-President of the European Forum Alpbach

Ich kann alles.

Im 5Giganetz von A1.

Event Partner des Europäischen Forums Alpbach

is the posture chosen by the “frugal four” in the current negotiations of rescue funds, which are hardly the sign of a Hamiltonian moment in European history, as hailed by some commentators. Moreover, in May 2020 the German Federal Constitutional Court produced another ruling to assert national budgetary sovereignty, thus ignoring the need to conceive monetary policy for the eurozone as a whole and not only in line with German preferences. If this sketchy description of current developments is correct, the question about whether “ever closer union” is still a fundamental to Europeans, begs for a gloomy answer.

There is, however, also a bright side to the life of the Union. The Euro has survived a wicked crisis, while at last member states agreed on an intergovernmental rescue fund.

European legislators created a set of new provisions to regulate national fiscal policy and banks, whereas the European Central Bank morphed into the great stabiliser of the eurozone. Recently, Germany and France seem at last to act in concert to put in place large scale rescue operations to fight off the pandemic-induced economic downturn.

Brexit has so far not generated emulators, on the contrary, it has brought to life the “EU 27” who are united in preventing the UK from “cherry-picking” and in delegating the power to negotiate future relations to the Commission and Michel Barnier. Such consistency may be surprising but it is the result of a continuous inter-institutional dialogue at the European and the national level. Moreover, according to the latest Eurobarometer of 2019 citizens have either a positive (42%) or a neutral (37%) image of the Union, whereas only 20% see it negatively. Figures may fluctuate over time and mirror different sentiments in different countries, but they doubtlessly convey a general perception of the Union as something to be preserved, not dismantled. Moreover, trust in EU institutions is greater than in national institutions, while trust in the Euro is at an all-time high of 76% on average for the whole Euro area. Figures relating to satisfaction with democracy are more ambivalent: While

data regarding the question whether citizens believe that their voice counts at Union level decreased from 56% in spring to 45% in Autumn 2019, it conveys satisfaction with how democracy works in the Union (52% versus 40% of dissatisfied). Most remarkably, 70% of EU 28 respondents consider themselves as EU citizens.

These results do hardly suggest the end of the Union, but rather provoke another question: Are citizens keener to unify than their elites? Do the former outdo the latter in regarding the project of “ever closer union” as fundamental? A construct that needs constant improvement to build “a more perfect union”, but that is worthwhile pursuing because there is less “happiness” to be expected without it? While answers to these questions may be speculative, data concerning citizens’ expectations towards the EU’s capacity to act could be used as an indication for a bolder vision of its future: Two thirds of citizens want the EU to develop a common asylum policy and a reinforcement of external border control, a majority wishes a European policy for renewable energy and fighting plastic waste, 78% favour measures to ensure gender equality at the work place, while 57% support a single digital market.

This data draws a different picture of the EU than offered by the bickering of member states governments over asylum quota or money to be allocated to the EU for crisis management.

Finally, “ever closer union” does of course not spare European foreign and security policy.

Since the inception of European integration this chapter has always been a particularly difficult one. However, while today 70% of the citizens believe that the EU’s voice is heard in the world, Eurobarometer 2019 does not ask how they want the EU to act in a conflict-ridden world and on what scale of resources. We no longer live in quiet times: the multipolar world that seemed to replace the Cold War duopoly has waned in the new struggle for hegemony between the US and China. There are more conflicts looming large:

10

some in the immediate neighbourhood of the EU, some hot and some cold, some involving trade and currency wars, all of them threatening the liberal and multipolar world order.

Are European citizens and representatives prepared to herald and pay for the defence of such order, to invest in its institutions from the UN to the WTO, to develop peace-making and -keeping scenarios, last not least to risk conflict with its counterparts, in particular the US within NATO? Or do they prefer emulating other big powers by putting “Europe first”, for instance by building European industrial champions and thus disavowing competition policy as a pillar of the single market? Or utilising the Euro in global currency antagonisms? Whatever the answers to these questions, the EU may need a bold narrative about becoming an autonomous world power rather than remaining a quiet trade giant and a satellite of others in security and defence. Boldness was indeed the term used by the Commission president Ursula von der Leyen in her inauguration speech before the European Parliament. And boldness in political, social, and economic terms is what we need to overcome the current crisis and to promote democracy, justice, and sustainability in Europe and the world.

Im 5Giganetz von A1.

Das 5Giganetz von A1, die beste Kombination aus größtem Glasfasernetz und schnellster 5G Technologie, bringt Ihrem Unternehmen immer den entscheidenden Vorsprung und ist der nächste Schritt für Ihren #BusinessChange.

SONJA PUNTSCHER-RIEKMANN is a university professor for political theory and EU politics at the University of Salzburg and a Vice-President of the European Forum Alpbach

Ich kann alles.

Im 5Giganetz von A1.

Event Partner des Europäischen Forums Alpbach

ness and the risk of bio-terrorism have increased. In his remarks to the UN Security Council on 9 April, 2020, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres listed bioterrorism as one of the priority security risks that arise from Covid-19, because on one hand, terrorists generally could use the opportunity to attack while governments are overwhelmed by the crisis. On the other hand, the weaknesses and inadequate preparation exposed by this pandemic provide insights into what a bioterrorist attack could look like and may increase the risk of it.

Pandemics are not wars. The coronavirus itself is not an act of violence and has no political intentions. But the pandemic does imply effects for international security and therefore needs to be regarded not only as a health crisis but as a strategic challenge too, as it threatens to exacerbate security risks and causes new risks.

There lies great danger of a one-sided, strictly public health focused assessment in the current situation. Past crises and pandemics demonstrated that they have never reduced military risks. In fact, we can expect that already existing security policy trends will be further intensified. New challenges might arise, and any new crisis would now hit states that have been severely weakened economically.

SECURITY POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC J O HA N N F R A N K A N D L EY L A DA SK I N

The strategic answer to the Covid crisis is cooperation.

Only well-connected societies, people and states are resilient.

Migration from Africa will increase as soon as the border closures are being relaxed again. However, there could be a shift in the destination countries. In this way, countries that are less affected by the disease could become more of a desired final destination for refugees.

The potential of numbers is enormous, there are 150,000 refugees on the Western Balkans route, including 120,000 in Greece. Turkey is currently home to four million refugees, 3.5 million are in Iran, 650,000 in Libya. Attempts by transit countries to politically exploit the refugees are possible at any time.

The possible risks can be broken down into global, transnational and regional challenges. Globally, a new Cold War between China and the United States is continuously precipitated in the conflict over economy, technology, strategic goals, and political and social values.

This trend has already been in the making before the pandemic, but was now accelerated by the virus. Transnationally, terrorists can use the crisis to become stronger and learn from it. Biotechnology could become a more attractive weapon, and there is an increasing risk of cyber threats. Regionally, an increase in migration should also be expected again as soon as the borders are reopened.

Furthermore, there are dangers in the online area. Not only increased cyber-crime due to increased economic activities on the internet, but also information and disinformation campaigns. The internet becomes a contested area in propaganda war. Another trend is using the cyber area for espionage in medicine, research and development. Among other things, this is about the race for Corona vaccine and medication.

In the periphery of Europe, especially in the belt from West Africa and Central Africa to the Middle East and Afghanistan, the pandemic shows no sign of a stabilising effect. Rather, even states that were somewhat stable so far could now get under pressure because of the pandemic. The security risks posed by the crisis belt, the ‘ring of fire’, will tend to increase for Europe.

The pressure on Europe stemming from both Washington, D.C., and Beijing is great. Europe’s supply reliability and its economic system are vulnerable, for example if access to the Chinese market for medical goods and other products is restricted on the one hand, or to US technologies and the US economy on the other. China and the United States are trying to win partners or allies in the capital cities of the EU by offering support during the pandemic and providing aid, visible for the media, or by offering loans, infrastructure projects or promoting military cooperation. Europe must cope with the United States’ retreat as a world power and the pressure from China. This requires new qualities in its foreign policy such as determination, autonomy, and self-confidence.

In Africa, the economic collateral damage caused by the coronavirus is expected to be more serious than the health crisis itself. Some states are already weakened by the locust plague and other crises and diseases such as Malaria and Ebola. Terrorist organisations like Boko Haram in Nigeria or Al Shabaab in Somalia are in the process of reorganising and gaining ability to act. The security authorities in these countries are busy reducing the spread of the virus and enforcing exit restrictions in metropolitan areas. This means that large parts of the states, especially the rural areas, are left without security forces.

The more the transatlantic community erodes, the greater the opportunities for China and Russia to play off Europe and the United States against each other. This dynamic is based in particular on geo-economic developments, because the competition between these four players is essentially determined by competition for access to and control over strategic infrastructure, communication networks, new technologies, supply channels and supply chains. The companies that are crucial for security of supply in areas such as energy, health, nutrition, digitalisation and other high-technology segments are at the core of this competition dynamic. Without protecting these strategic companies and the supply chains, there can be no strategic resilience or strategic autonomy in Europe.

The pandemic has also not eased the situation in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. It has even worsened in Libya. The dispute between Iran and the United States is still ongoing. In all of these states more deaths result from civil war than from the coronavirus. There is no noticeable reduced military engagement from actors like Iran or Russia, even though these countries have been particularly affected by the virus.

Terrorist networks like ISIS and Al Qaeda are using the current phase of the pandemic to reorganise themselves and recruit with the help of propaganda and conspiracy theories. The fact that many people have resorted to the online-world during lockdowns plays into their hands when it comes to online-recruiting.

Without strategic resilience, the economy and attractiveness as a location of a country are exposed to incalculable risks. This requires rethinking: the state should create incentives so that companies invest more in security, for example by jointly stocking critical components,

These organisations are already observing closely the fear that the pandemic is creating in the western world. As a result, the attractive-

12

13

ness and the risk of bio-terrorism have increased. In his remarks to the UN Security Council on 9 April, 2020, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres listed bioterrorism as one of the priority security risks that arise from Covid-19, because on one hand, terrorists generally could use the opportunity to attack while governments are overwhelmed by the crisis. On the other hand, the weaknesses and inadequate preparation exposed by this pandemic provide insights into what a bioterrorist attack could look like and may increase the risk of it.

Pandemics are not wars. The coronavirus itself is not an act of violence and has no political intentions. But the pandemic does imply effects for international security and therefore needs to be regarded not only as a health crisis but as a strategic challenge too, as it threatens to exacerbate security risks and causes new risks.

There lies great danger of a one-sided, strictly public health focused assessment in the current situation. Past crises and pandemics demonstrated that they have never reduced military risks. In fact, we can expect that already existing security policy trends will be further intensified. New challenges might arise, and any new crisis would now hit states that have been severely weakened economically.

SECURITY POLICY IMPLICATIONS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC J O HA N N F R A N K A N D L EY L A DA SK I N

The strategic answer to the Covid crisis is cooperation.

Only well-connected societies, people and states are resilient.

Migration from Africa will increase as soon as the border closures are being relaxed again. However, there could be a shift in the destination countries. In this way, countries that are less affected by the disease could become more of a desired final destination for refugees.

The potential of numbers is enormous, there are 150,000 refugees on the Western Balkans route, including 120,000 in Greece. Turkey is currently home to four million refugees, 3.5 million are in Iran, 650,000 in Libya. Attempts by transit countries to politically exploit the refugees are possible at any time.

The possible risks can be broken down into global, transnational and regional challenges. Globally, a new Cold War between China and the United States is continuously precipitated in the conflict over economy, technology, strategic goals, and political and social values.

This trend has already been in the making before the pandemic, but was now accelerated by the virus. Transnationally, terrorists can use the crisis to become stronger and learn from it. Biotechnology could become a more attractive weapon, and there is an increasing risk of cyber threats. Regionally, an increase in migration should also be expected again as soon as the borders are reopened.

Furthermore, there are dangers in the online area. Not only increased cyber-crime due to increased economic activities on the internet, but also information and disinformation campaigns. The internet becomes a contested area in propaganda war. Another trend is using the cyber area for espionage in medicine, research and development. Among other things, this is about the race for Corona vaccine and medication.

In the periphery of Europe, especially in the belt from West Africa and Central Africa to the Middle East and Afghanistan, the pandemic shows no sign of a stabilising effect. Rather, even states that were somewhat stable so far could now get under pressure because of the pandemic. The security risks posed by the crisis belt, the ‘ring of fire’, will tend to increase for Europe.

The pressure on Europe stemming from both Washington, D.C., and Beijing is great. Europe’s supply reliability and its economic system are vulnerable, for example if access to the Chinese market for medical goods and other products is restricted on the one hand, or to US technologies and the US economy on the other. China and the United States are trying to win partners or allies in the capital cities of the EU by offering support during the pandemic and providing aid, visible for the media, or by offering loans, infrastructure projects or promoting military cooperation. Europe must cope with the United States’ retreat as a world power and the pressure from China. This requires new qualities in its foreign policy such as determination, autonomy, and self-confidence.

In Africa, the economic collateral damage caused by the coronavirus is expected to be more serious than the health crisis itself. Some states are already weakened by the locust plague and other crises and diseases such as Malaria and Ebola. Terrorist organisations like Boko Haram in Nigeria or Al Shabaab in Somalia are in the process of reorganising and gaining ability to act. The security authorities in these countries are busy reducing the spread of the virus and enforcing exit restrictions in metropolitan areas. This means that large parts of the states, especially the rural areas, are left without security forces.

The more the transatlantic community erodes, the greater the opportunities for China and Russia to play off Europe and the United States against each other. This dynamic is based in particular on geo-economic developments, because the competition between these four players is essentially determined by competition for access to and control over strategic infrastructure, communication networks, new technologies, supply channels and supply chains. The companies that are crucial for security of supply in areas such as energy, health, nutrition, digitalisation and other high-technology segments are at the core of this competition dynamic. Without protecting these strategic companies and the supply chains, there can be no strategic resilience or strategic autonomy in Europe.

The pandemic has also not eased the situation in Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. It has even worsened in Libya. The dispute between Iran and the United States is still ongoing. In all of these states more deaths result from civil war than from the coronavirus. There is no noticeable reduced military engagement from actors like Iran or Russia, even though these countries have been particularly affected by the virus.

Terrorist networks like ISIS and Al Qaeda are using the current phase of the pandemic to reorganise themselves and recruit with the help of propaganda and conspiracy theories. The fact that many people have resorted to the online-world during lockdowns plays into their hands when it comes to online-recruiting.

Without strategic resilience, the economy and attractiveness as a location of a country are exposed to incalculable risks. This requires rethinking: the state should create incentives so that companies invest more in security, for example by jointly stocking critical components,

These organisations are already observing closely the fear that the pandemic is creating in the western world. As a result, the attractive-

12

13

promoting research and technology, or purchasing new security products as a first customer. For companies, strategic reserves ensuring that operational processes and supply chains are crisis-proof become a competitive differentiator because they ensure performance even in extraordinary situations. State and business need a new form of strategic dialogue in order to discuss these aspects together and to develop new security approaches.

of science-based policy advice that needs to be further developed, even if it is not always easy to find the most relevant information for political decision-making from different scientific approaches and forecasts. But we have seen how vulnerable modern information societies are to disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories.

This must be countered by active strategic communication and widely accessible and understandable factual information.

Strategic crisis resilience requires that the state on the one hand mitigates risks for the economy and society through robust protective measures and emergency programs. On the other hand, the state must play an activating role that enables the economy, society and the individual citizen to be able to identify and manage risks better in the future. This form of strategic crisis resilience particularly relies on expanding the ability to anticipate in order to identify the origins of possible strategic shocks at an early stage. Risk analysis without concrete measures is useless. It is not enough to recognise risks; the risk assessment needs to be followed by concrete policies, backed with resources, not as a peripheral political area with its importance and scope being measured according to the priorities of other policy fields.

In future planning, all security scenarios, including strategic surprises and risks that are difficult to calculate, should be taken into account, even if not all risks will actually occur. It is nonetheless of vital importance to recognise dangers early and to be prepared. Europe must increase its resilience and strategic autonomy, and it must also cooperate more in the field of security policy. Non-cooperation in the military sector, i.e. no division of labor and the use of various systems in the armed forces of EU-countries cost 30 billion euros. Europe will not be able to afford this in the future. Again, only well-connected societies, people and states are resilient. So the strategic answer to the Covid crisis must be more cooperation not less.

The post-pandemic desire for national resilience is growing and so is the temptation to use this for protectionist measures, renationalisation and isolationism. However, that would be detrimental to the goal of a new strategic resilience. Protectionism undermines diversity but it is only the well-connected states, economical systems, and societies that can be resilient. In fact, we need more and not less Europe, more and not less security cooperation, more and not less solidarity. Europe can only come out of this crisis together to tackle the enormous challenges it is facing.

This pandemic puts effective multilateralism to the test. Previous foundations of international security policy have been called into question and need active contributions from those states that adhere to a liberal international order.

Therefore, this is also a re-defining moment for the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the EU. Military assistance was required in all EU member states during the pandemic, while international engagement needed to continue. The question for the future will be what role the CSDP should and can play within the EU, like when it comes to protecting its external borders, its critical infrastructure, countering hybrid threats or terrorism. The process of creating a “Strategic Compass” under the German EU Council Presidency should define the risks that will be relevant in the future and use this risk assessment to outline the necessary measures, capabilities, and priorities for Europe’s future. The Strategic Compass should give the CSDP a new strategic orientation that takes lessons from Covid-19 into account. This strategic document comes at an important time to say the least. May it rise to its responsibility and may all member states make valuable contributions to this end.

The United Nations and World Health Organization have a problem when it comes to financing and acceptance. In this new Cold War, the ability of international organisations to act has come under pressure.

Institutions such as the UN, the World Food Program or the World Health Organization have “serious funding gaps” and also an acceptance problem. Guterres’ call for a ceasefire in all conflicts in the face of Covid-19 has gone unheeded. In the year the UN celebrates its 75th anniversary, it will be therefore more important than ever to remember the collective commitment to multilateralism that was given exactly because of this need for international cooperation when handling global challenges.

JOHANN FRANK is the Director of the Institute for Peace Support and Conflict Management at the National Defense Academy of Austria LEYLA DASKIN is a political scientist at the Institute for Peace Support and Conflict Management at the National Defense Academy of Austria, her scientific focus are transatlantic relationships and terrorism

Zeit, nach vorne zu schauen.

Und unsere Zukunft neu zu denken.

The European Union has started to kick into crisis management after initial problems, with about 3.4 trillion EUR in aid. This was an important step, since renationalisation would certainly have been the wrong strategy in times of crisis.

Jetzt ist die Zeit, Österreich neu zu gestalten und die Weichen für eine klimafreundliche Mobilität zu stellen.

Denken wir unsere Zukunft gemeinsam neu und bringen wir Österreich voran.

Another important aspect to reconsider is the future relationship between science and security. This pandemic has underlined the value

HEUTE. FÜR MORGEN. FÜR UNS. 14

unsereoebb.at

@unsereOEBB

promoting research and technology, or purchasing new security products as a first customer. For companies, strategic reserves ensuring that operational processes and supply chains are crisis-proof become a competitive differentiator because they ensure performance even in extraordinary situations. State and business need a new form of strategic dialogue in order to discuss these aspects together and to develop new security approaches.

of science-based policy advice that needs to be further developed, even if it is not always easy to find the most relevant information for political decision-making from different scientific approaches and forecasts. But we have seen how vulnerable modern information societies are to disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories.

This must be countered by active strategic communication and widely accessible and understandable factual information.

Strategic crisis resilience requires that the state on the one hand mitigates risks for the economy and society through robust protective measures and emergency programs. On the other hand, the state must play an activating role that enables the economy, society and the individual citizen to be able to identify and manage risks better in the future. This form of strategic crisis resilience particularly relies on expanding the ability to anticipate in order to identify the origins of possible strategic shocks at an early stage. Risk analysis without concrete measures is useless. It is not enough to recognise risks; the risk assessment needs to be followed by concrete policies, backed with resources, not as a peripheral political area with its importance and scope being measured according to the priorities of other policy fields.

In future planning, all security scenarios, including strategic surprises and risks that are difficult to calculate, should be taken into account, even if not all risks will actually occur. It is nonetheless of vital importance to recognise dangers early and to be prepared. Europe must increase its resilience and strategic autonomy, and it must also cooperate more in the field of security policy. Non-cooperation in the military sector, i.e. no division of labor and the use of various systems in the armed forces of EU-countries cost 30 billion euros. Europe will not be able to afford this in the future. Again, only well-connected societies, people and states are resilient. So the strategic answer to the Covid crisis must be more cooperation not less.

The post-pandemic desire for national resilience is growing and so is the temptation to use this for protectionist measures, renationalisation and isolationism. However, that would be detrimental to the goal of a new strategic resilience. Protectionism undermines diversity but it is only the well-connected states, economical systems, and societies that can be resilient. In fact, we need more and not less Europe, more and not less security cooperation, more and not less solidarity. Europe can only come out of this crisis together to tackle the enormous challenges it is facing.

This pandemic puts effective multilateralism to the test. Previous foundations of international security policy have been called into question and need active contributions from those states that adhere to a liberal international order.

Therefore, this is also a re-defining moment for the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP) of the EU. Military assistance was required in all EU member states during the pandemic, while international engagement needed to continue. The question for the future will be what role the CSDP should and can play within the EU, like when it comes to protecting its external borders, its critical infrastructure, countering hybrid threats or terrorism. The process of creating a “Strategic Compass” under the German EU Council Presidency should define the risks that will be relevant in the future and use this risk assessment to outline the necessary measures, capabilities, and priorities for Europe’s future. The Strategic Compass should give the CSDP a new strategic orientation that takes lessons from Covid-19 into account. This strategic document comes at an important time to say the least. May it rise to its responsibility and may all member states make valuable contributions to this end.

The United Nations and World Health Organization have a problem when it comes to financing and acceptance. In this new Cold War, the ability of international organisations to act has come under pressure.

Institutions such as the UN, the World Food Program or the World Health Organization have “serious funding gaps” and also an acceptance problem. Guterres’ call for a ceasefire in all conflicts in the face of Covid-19 has gone unheeded. In the year the UN celebrates its 75th anniversary, it will be therefore more important than ever to remember the collective commitment to multilateralism that was given exactly because of this need for international cooperation when handling global challenges.

JOHANN FRANK is the Director of the Institute for Peace Support and Conflict Management at the National Defense Academy of Austria LEYLA DASKIN is a political scientist at the Institute for Peace Support and Conflict Management at the National Defense Academy of Austria, her scientific focus are transatlantic relationships and terrorism

Zeit, nach vorne zu schauen.

Und unsere Zukunft neu zu denken.

The European Union has started to kick into crisis management after initial problems, with about 3.4 trillion EUR in aid. This was an important step, since renationalisation would certainly have been the wrong strategy in times of crisis.

Jetzt ist die Zeit, Österreich neu zu gestalten und die Weichen für eine klimafreundliche Mobilität zu stellen.

Denken wir unsere Zukunft gemeinsam neu und bringen wir Österreich voran.

Another important aspect to reconsider is the future relationship between science and security. This pandemic has underlined the value

HEUTE. FÜR MORGEN. FÜR UNS. 14

unsereoebb.at

@unsereOEBB

IS CHINA REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CORONA PANDEMIC? SU S A N N E W E IG E L I N - S C H W I E D R Z I K

If it were up to President Trump, this question would be answered quickly: China is responsible for this disaster.

Incidentally, the Chinese leadership is already having a hard time with it. The disease undeniably became visible for the first time in the Chinese megacity of Wuhan.

It remains unclear where the virus came from. The government of the People’s Republic of China has agreed in principle to an investigation of the situation. However, only under the condition that not only Wuhan but the whole world is investigated, and only when everything is over. So, do they have something to hide?

There remains the widespread perception that the PRC government did not inform the public in China and around the world immediately after the appearance of the disease of its potential to develop into a pandemic, although prominent experts in the PRC considered this risk to be high. A faster flow of information to the world public could have saved many lives — in China and around the world.

But: The world outside China did not want to consider the possibility of a pandemic, even when it became clear in Wuhan with what force the epidemic was spreading. Today we know that the Chinese Center for Disease Control informed its US-American partner organization about the new pneumonia at an early stage and sought cooperation. Although the US-American medical secret service warned Washington that the disease was spreading, no action was taken. Apparently, the Trump government assumed that the problem was a Chinese one.

In Europe, too, it took quite a long time to realise the scale of the problem. Although many airlines stopped their flights to and from China soon after the closure of Wuhan, flights that continued to arrive from China,

16

e.g. at Vienna’s Airport in Schwechat, were treated in the same way as always. Since the SARS epidemic in 2003, systems for automatically recording the body temperature of passengers have been installed at airports in East Asia. These systems do not exist in Europe. Manual temperature measurements were not considered. Again, it was probably assumed that the new disease was a Chinese one.

Would governments around the world have acted differently if the WHO had pointed out the danger earlier? The reason given for the withdrawal of the USA from the WHO is that this organisation is partly responsible for the disaster. It is worth noting that the WHO has been pointing out the dangers of a pandemic for years and has added “disease X” to the

list of possible triggers of a pandemic since 2018. The relevant documents state that there might be a pandemic caused by an unknown virus with a high risk of infection, affecting so many countries that it would cause serious social and economic crises. No response. A swine flu epidemic occurred in the USA in 2009/2010, killing 12,000 people. At that time, the stocks of protective clothing and masks, which are kept in camps in various parts of the country, were exhausted. Since then, they have not been replenished.

No, the governments would not have acted differently. They had enough time to prepare for such a disaster and they had reasons not to do so. We can see from the situation in East Asia that if measures had been taken earlier, the pandemic would have developed on a different scale. Although particularly close to the center of the outbreak, East Asia has come off comparatively well. The island of Taiwan stands out in particular. Measures were taken early — for example, school and university holidays were extended over Chinese New Year — but the population was spared measures to restrict their freedom of movement. The experience of the SARS epidemic in 2003 is very important, and even more so for the positive development in South Korea. Although far less contagious

than the coronavirus, the East Asian region was comparatively more severely affected at that time, starting in China. Not only the governments had learned to deal with the epidemic, the societies were also familiar with it. Most people knew what had to be done. Nevertheless, East Asia was not immune to dismantling its camps. Accordingly, protective clothing and masks were also in short supply in East Asia this time around.

Instead of acknowledging that we are dealing with a global phenomenon to which each country is reacting with a different strategy, not least to prove that it is capable of managing such a crisis, the governments of the USA and the PRC are blaming each other for the crisis. The coronavirus has long since become a bone of contention between the USA and the PRC. The more the USA shows weakness — its aircraft carriers in the Pacific are contaminated with Corona, and there is fighting outside the White House, as there has recently only been seen in Hong Kong — the more voices are raised in the PRC that now is the time to force the allegedly secessionist province of Taiwan to surrender to Beijing. While we in Europe fight daily with the Corona statistics, the knives are being sharpened verbally between Beijing and Washington.

17

On closer inspection, one phenomenon bears responsibility for the pandemic crisis: it is the new Cold War between the USA and the People’s Republic of China, which has been in the making for some time and which has reached its temporary peak in the course of the Corona pandemic. The fact that the USA and the PRC are undergoing a process of decoupling, not only in the economy but also at many other levels of their previous cooperation, is the real cause of the crisis.

This decoupling means that information that was previously exchanged between the two countries is no longer exchanged, or at least not heard; it means that channels of communication that previously created and maintained trust are no longer used; it means that attempts to contain conflicts are no longer made. And it means that both countries believe they can use a global pandemic crisis to their own advantage. The victims of the Corona crisis are the first victims of the new Cold War!

SUSANNE WEIGELIN-SCHWIEDRZIK is a professor of sinology at the Department for East Asian Studies and the Dean of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna

IS CHINA REALLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CORONA PANDEMIC? SU S A N N E W E IG E L I N - S C H W I E D R Z I K

If it were up to President Trump, this question would be answered quickly: China is responsible for this disaster.

Incidentally, the Chinese leadership is already having a hard time with it. The disease undeniably became visible for the first time in the Chinese megacity of Wuhan.

It remains unclear where the virus came from. The government of the People’s Republic of China has agreed in principle to an investigation of the situation. However, only under the condition that not only Wuhan but the whole world is investigated, and only when everything is over. So, do they have something to hide?

There remains the widespread perception that the PRC government did not inform the public in China and around the world immediately after the appearance of the disease of its potential to develop into a pandemic, although prominent experts in the PRC considered this risk to be high. A faster flow of information to the world public could have saved many lives — in China and around the world.

But: The world outside China did not want to consider the possibility of a pandemic, even when it became clear in Wuhan with what force the epidemic was spreading. Today we know that the Chinese Center for Disease Control informed its US-American partner organization about the new pneumonia at an early stage and sought cooperation. Although the US-American medical secret service warned Washington that the disease was spreading, no action was taken. Apparently, the Trump government assumed that the problem was a Chinese one.

In Europe, too, it took quite a long time to realise the scale of the problem. Although many airlines stopped their flights to and from China soon after the closure of Wuhan, flights that continued to arrive from China,

16

e.g. at Vienna’s Airport in Schwechat, were treated in the same way as always. Since the SARS epidemic in 2003, systems for automatically recording the body temperature of passengers have been installed at airports in East Asia. These systems do not exist in Europe. Manual temperature measurements were not considered. Again, it was probably assumed that the new disease was a Chinese one.

Would governments around the world have acted differently if the WHO had pointed out the danger earlier? The reason given for the withdrawal of the USA from the WHO is that this organisation is partly responsible for the disaster. It is worth noting that the WHO has been pointing out the dangers of a pandemic for years and has added “disease X” to the

list of possible triggers of a pandemic since 2018. The relevant documents state that there might be a pandemic caused by an unknown virus with a high risk of infection, affecting so many countries that it would cause serious social and economic crises. No response. A swine flu epidemic occurred in the USA in 2009/2010, killing 12,000 people. At that time, the stocks of protective clothing and masks, which are kept in camps in various parts of the country, were exhausted. Since then, they have not been replenished.

No, the governments would not have acted differently. They had enough time to prepare for such a disaster and they had reasons not to do so. We can see from the situation in East Asia that if measures had been taken earlier, the pandemic would have developed on a different scale. Although particularly close to the center of the outbreak, East Asia has come off comparatively well. The island of Taiwan stands out in particular. Measures were taken early — for example, school and university holidays were extended over Chinese New Year — but the population was spared measures to restrict their freedom of movement. The experience of the SARS epidemic in 2003 is very important, and even more so for the positive development in South Korea. Although far less contagious

than the coronavirus, the East Asian region was comparatively more severely affected at that time, starting in China. Not only the governments had learned to deal with the epidemic, the societies were also familiar with it. Most people knew what had to be done. Nevertheless, East Asia was not immune to dismantling its camps. Accordingly, protective clothing and masks were also in short supply in East Asia this time around.

Instead of acknowledging that we are dealing with a global phenomenon to which each country is reacting with a different strategy, not least to prove that it is capable of managing such a crisis, the governments of the USA and the PRC are blaming each other for the crisis. The coronavirus has long since become a bone of contention between the USA and the PRC. The more the USA shows weakness — its aircraft carriers in the Pacific are contaminated with Corona, and there is fighting outside the White House, as there has recently only been seen in Hong Kong — the more voices are raised in the PRC that now is the time to force the allegedly secessionist province of Taiwan to surrender to Beijing. While we in Europe fight daily with the Corona statistics, the knives are being sharpened verbally between Beijing and Washington.

17

On closer inspection, one phenomenon bears responsibility for the pandemic crisis: it is the new Cold War between the USA and the People’s Republic of China, which has been in the making for some time and which has reached its temporary peak in the course of the Corona pandemic. The fact that the USA and the PRC are undergoing a process of decoupling, not only in the economy but also at many other levels of their previous cooperation, is the real cause of the crisis.

This decoupling means that information that was previously exchanged between the two countries is no longer exchanged, or at least not heard; it means that channels of communication that previously created and maintained trust are no longer used; it means that attempts to contain conflicts are no longer made. And it means that both countries believe they can use a global pandemic crisis to their own advantage. The victims of the Corona crisis are the first victims of the new Cold War!

SUSANNE WEIGELIN-SCHWIEDRZIK is a professor of sinology at the Department for East Asian Studies and the Dean of the Faculty of Philological and Cultural Studies at the University of Vienna

RESTARTING THE ECONOMY AFTER COVID-19 Although there remain many uncertainties about the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, it is already clear that it has provoked the largest economic shock in Europe since the Second World War. The production of goods and services was severely cut as a consequence of the domestic as well as foreign lockdowns. The activation of consistent and typically European social and financial safety nets helped cushion the social consequences during the sanitary peak period, resulting in an increase of indebtedness in all countries.

But this always was to be a temporary fix. The damage done to some sectors such as tourism, aviation, hospitality and restauration, entertainment, just to name a few, will be long lasting and result in major job losses especially among small businesses and independent producers. The EU unemployment rate is expected to jump from 6.7% to 10%, an average increase of 50%, and probably more among young Europeans entering the labour market.

5 economists share their thoughts on where to go from here.

1 | Newfound Love of Globalisation

2 | There is No Solidarity, There are Only Proofs of Solidarity!

PA S C A L L A M Y

In the current situation there is an urgent necessity of ambitious recovery plans at both national and European levels. Past experiences tell us that the most obvious option lies in stimulating investment with public expenditure for some time. A relatively simple solution at national level. But a more complex solution at EU level, although a necessity in order to share the burden by using the European budget.

One could say about solidarity what the French poet Pierre Reverdy said about love: there is no solidarity, there are only proofs of solidarity!

Good examples of how to combine these three criteria: the thermic renovation of schools or social housing, the upgrading of water and waste treatment.

All in all, the economic challenge goes to the heart of the European project: a social market-sustainable economy, looking to the future with its own values.

According to a proposal by a joint study published in May by Europe Jacques Delors in Brussels, and the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris before the European Commission published its recovery plan proposal, these investments should combine three different approaches: jobs, speed, sustainability. Jobs to compensate for the losses, preferably in sectors that will matter more in the future than they have in the past, and that do not need super qualifications. Speed as the need for relaunching the economy is urgent and cannot wait and shovel-ready projects should be prioritised. Sustainability as the ecological transition must not be one more victim of the virus, and as Europe has to build a comparative advantage for future growth in what will unfortunately probably be a world where geo-economic and geo-political tensions will increase.

But it would be incomplete without more attention to the situation of the rest of the world, especially poorer developing countries who do not have the necessary resources to stimulate their economies.

The European fight for multilateralism and for harnessing and better organising globalisation so that it benefits to all must go on, even, and probably more importantly, in the difficult times to come.

PASCAL LAMY is a former Director General of the World Trade Organisation and served as a European Commissioner for Trade

production profits and to ensure that economic growth around the world leaves the negative figures behind. “De-growth” and “de-globalisation” are recipes for disaster. On the contrary, we must now rediscover and recapture what the coronavirus threatened to take away from us: the love of globalisation, of international cooperation, of wealth-creating exchange, of the free movement not only of capital, goods and online-tradable services, but also of people. All this requires a healthy perspective, a fresh eye.

KA R E N HO R N

The Corona pandemic is not over — neither is the economic crisis it has caused around the world. The recession is hefty, and no one can say how long it will last. The spirited intervention of governments in countries that could afford it will not prevent many companies from eventually becoming insolvent due to over-indebtedness or business models that have become obsolete, nor will it prevent accelerated, deep structural change and the loosening of global economic interdependence. To the extent that economic risks will take on previously unseen dimensions, the costs of a wrong policy might also increase.

This justifies, among other things, higher demands on the strategic reserves of the various countries, hygiene, corporate warehousing and the flexibility of value chains. But this is precisely why there is also a need for a strong political will to remove obstacles to cooperation, i.e. customs duties and non-tariff trade barriers as well as the scandalous blockade of the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO, the most important institution of world trade. It is high time to put an end to economic wars large and small.

Already all too apparent before the crisis, it would be detrimental to give in even more to the tendency to “make it alone”, to selfishness and isolationism, to compartmentalisation and protectionism. The only way to make up for lost ground fairly quickly in economic terms is to get the international division of labour moving again, to turn around

KAREN HORN teaches Economic History of Ideas at the University of Erfurt, she lives in Zurich

18

19

RESTARTING THE ECONOMY AFTER COVID-19 Although there remain many uncertainties about the impact of the Covid-19 crisis, it is already clear that it has provoked the largest economic shock in Europe since the Second World War. The production of goods and services was severely cut as a consequence of the domestic as well as foreign lockdowns. The activation of consistent and typically European social and financial safety nets helped cushion the social consequences during the sanitary peak period, resulting in an increase of indebtedness in all countries.

But this always was to be a temporary fix. The damage done to some sectors such as tourism, aviation, hospitality and restauration, entertainment, just to name a few, will be long lasting and result in major job losses especially among small businesses and independent producers. The EU unemployment rate is expected to jump from 6.7% to 10%, an average increase of 50%, and probably more among young Europeans entering the labour market.

5 economists share their thoughts on where to go from here.

1 | Newfound Love of Globalisation

2 | There is No Solidarity, There are Only Proofs of Solidarity!

PA S C A L L A M Y

In the current situation there is an urgent necessity of ambitious recovery plans at both national and European levels. Past experiences tell us that the most obvious option lies in stimulating investment with public expenditure for some time. A relatively simple solution at national level. But a more complex solution at EU level, although a necessity in order to share the burden by using the European budget.

One could say about solidarity what the French poet Pierre Reverdy said about love: there is no solidarity, there are only proofs of solidarity!

Good examples of how to combine these three criteria: the thermic renovation of schools or social housing, the upgrading of water and waste treatment.

All in all, the economic challenge goes to the heart of the European project: a social market-sustainable economy, looking to the future with its own values.

According to a proposal by a joint study published in May by Europe Jacques Delors in Brussels, and the Jacques Delors Institute in Paris before the European Commission published its recovery plan proposal, these investments should combine three different approaches: jobs, speed, sustainability. Jobs to compensate for the losses, preferably in sectors that will matter more in the future than they have in the past, and that do not need super qualifications. Speed as the need for relaunching the economy is urgent and cannot wait and shovel-ready projects should be prioritised. Sustainability as the ecological transition must not be one more victim of the virus, and as Europe has to build a comparative advantage for future growth in what will unfortunately probably be a world where geo-economic and geo-political tensions will increase.

But it would be incomplete without more attention to the situation of the rest of the world, especially poorer developing countries who do not have the necessary resources to stimulate their economies.

The European fight for multilateralism and for harnessing and better organising globalisation so that it benefits to all must go on, even, and probably more importantly, in the difficult times to come.

PASCAL LAMY is a former Director General of the World Trade Organisation and served as a European Commissioner for Trade

production profits and to ensure that economic growth around the world leaves the negative figures behind. “De-growth” and “de-globalisation” are recipes for disaster. On the contrary, we must now rediscover and recapture what the coronavirus threatened to take away from us: the love of globalisation, of international cooperation, of wealth-creating exchange, of the free movement not only of capital, goods and online-tradable services, but also of people. All this requires a healthy perspective, a fresh eye.

KA R E N HO R N

The Corona pandemic is not over — neither is the economic crisis it has caused around the world. The recession is hefty, and no one can say how long it will last. The spirited intervention of governments in countries that could afford it will not prevent many companies from eventually becoming insolvent due to over-indebtedness or business models that have become obsolete, nor will it prevent accelerated, deep structural change and the loosening of global economic interdependence. To the extent that economic risks will take on previously unseen dimensions, the costs of a wrong policy might also increase.

This justifies, among other things, higher demands on the strategic reserves of the various countries, hygiene, corporate warehousing and the flexibility of value chains. But this is precisely why there is also a need for a strong political will to remove obstacles to cooperation, i.e. customs duties and non-tariff trade barriers as well as the scandalous blockade of the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO, the most important institution of world trade. It is high time to put an end to economic wars large and small.

Already all too apparent before the crisis, it would be detrimental to give in even more to the tendency to “make it alone”, to selfishness and isolationism, to compartmentalisation and protectionism. The only way to make up for lost ground fairly quickly in economic terms is to get the international division of labour moving again, to turn around

KAREN HORN teaches Economic History of Ideas at the University of Erfurt, she lives in Zurich

18

19

3 | Adequate Policy Instruments for Rescuing and Transformation

5 | Needed: Effective Pandemic Economic Strategies with a Long-Run Vision

G A B R I E L F E L B E R M AY R

J O SE P H E . ST IG L I T Z

lost compared to last year. They should not target lost turnover — a bad predictor for lost value added. They should calibrate the replacement rate to narrow industry averages, not to individual firms, so that incentives to innovate and grow are not distorted.

The corona crisis causes enormous economic stress. Around the world, economic policy-makers have acted rapidly, but often in an uncoordinated and chaotic way. Because rescue programs are very expensive, it is crucial that they are effective and efficient. It is time now to assess the programs and recalibrate them if necessary.

Rescue programs are meant to stabilise the economy, not to be transformative. This would overburden the rescue policies and endanger their success. Of course, policies enabling transformations towards greener, more equitable, and more sustainable economies are extremely important. But they must be long-term rather than temporary, and they should be well thought-through and coordinated internationally rather than being enacted quickly. These features clearly collide with above criteria (i) and (ii). Moreover, by favouring certain firms, sectors, or technologies over others, transformative policies do distort the level playing field and cause redistribution. Rescuing and transforming are two different objectives. Remember Jan Tinbergen, the first Nobel prize winner in economics: to each objective, its own policy instrument.

Most economists agree that rescue programs should be (i) timely, (ii) temporary, and (iii) targeted. Some argue that they should also be (iv) transformative. Most countries score well on conditions (i) and (ii). But there are issues with criteria (iii) and (iv).

The meaning of “targeted” is often misunderstood as implying micro-management. Rather, it means that those who are most severely affected should receive most help, regardless of companies’ size, legal status, or industry affiliations. Most furlough programme for workers meet this condition; but many rescue packages for businesses do not.

So, they risk to be perceived as unfair, and they are likely to cause competitive distortions.

Governments should reform their programme. They should pay companies' a generous fraction of EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes)

GABRIEL FELBERMAYR is the President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy

4 | Economic Measures Must Take Gender Issues into Account L I S A HA N Z L

sectors which have higher female employment shares, such as tourism and the hospitality industry, were more severely affected than others.

However, not only in the labor market are women put under additional strain. They also continue to carry out most of the unpaid work within households, even more so during the Covid-19 pandemic. Closures of schools and child care facilities massively increased pressure on families. In order to cope with this, women in Austria reduced their working hours by a third, while men only reduced theirs by a quarter, as a survey by SORA and Momentum Institute found.

The Covid-19 health crisis led many countries to enforce lockdowns on their populations, including the temporary closure of shops and businesses. Measures like these meant putting to a halt the engines that keep capitalist economies going. The result is and will be a major economic recession. Just like the pandemic itself, its economic ramifications will continue to bring structures of inequality into the limelight.

While well-paid individuals are far more likely to have the option to work from home, low-wage workers were either the ones who first lost their jobs, or the ones who maintained our basic needs, working in supermarkets and the health care sector under risky conditions. In short: The Covid-19 crisis is Female and Low-Paid.

Crises can be opportunities for cultural change. According to the above-cited study, “many businesses are now becoming much more aware of the childcare needs of their employees and respond by rapidly adopting more flexible work schedules and telecommuting options.”

To have a long-lasting impact on equality, economic measures must take gender issues into account. This is even more crucial as there is the very real possibility that the Covid-19 crisis reinforces existing inequities instead of erasing them.

A study by researchers at Northwestern University, the University of Mannheim, and the University of California showed that women will be hit disproportionately hard by this economic downturn. Service

LISA HANZL studies Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, she is working on questions of inequality, wealth distribution, and gender; she is on the board of IG Wien, one of the Forum Alpbach’s many alumni clubs

20

The single biggest challenge in designing policies to help us recover from the economic crisis brought on by Covid-19 is ensuring that they are as effective as possible in the short run — creating the most jobs, with the highest “multipliers,” i.e. bang for the buck — at the same time as they address the long-run needs of societies. In the US, for instance, before the crisis, we faced a health crisis and an inequality crisis. At the same time, parts of the country faced a difficult transition as we moved from a twentieth century manufacturing economy to a twenty-first century service-sector, knowledge, and green economy.

This long-run vision is especially important because the crisis will leave us more in debt; it is important that we do what we can to improve the asset side of the nation’s balance sheet — our human, physical, and natural capital.

Covid-19 has exposed the deep divides in many societies, the great inequalities. And Covid-19 is likely to make these divides even larger.

It would be unconscionable if public spending exacerbated these gaps.

Unfortunately, some of the key programs in the US did just that. For instance, money dedicated to the small business program, supposedly to protect these most vulnerable firms, went disproportionately to the largest, best connected, and least needy.

Fortunately, there are many categories of expenditure that fit the bill. Europe’s recovery package, as currently formulated, seems very much constructed with these objectives in mind. Achieving these goals would, however, be greatly undermined if the money were not allocated to the countries most badly affected and with the least fiscal space to respond, and if the money were provided in the form of loans rather than grants.

Unfortunately, some governments — including the US — have used a fire-hose; literally trillions of dollars of spending, without any sense of priorities, any vision of what kind of economy the country wants to emerge after the pandemic. The combination of bad design and bad implementation meant that in the US the money didn’t achieve its stated goal — let alone put the economy in a better position for when it emerges from the pandemic. It didn’t prevent an unprecedented increase in unemployment (nearly 25% of the labor force); it didn’t save many of the fragile businesses; it didn’t prevent a very large economic downturn; and it didn’t do as good of a job as it should have — given what was spent — in protecting the most vulnerable.

Other countries showed that there were alternatives — programme that were more effective in protecting jobs and costing much less.

With the government spending so much money, the public should have greater say in shaping the post-pandemic economy. It should put conditions on the assistance, for instance that the employers pay liveable wages and that companies behave in a more environmentally sensitive way. Again, some countries have done this; others have not.

The large variety of policies adopted in response to Covid-19 provides many opportunities for countries to learn from each other. Regrettably, it now appears that the pandemic will be with us for far longer than many thought a few months ago. That means there will have to be more government spending and new government programme.

Hopefully, the new programme will be designed taking to heart what we have learned from what works and what doesn’t.

JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ is an American economist, a professor at Columbia University and recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

3 | Adequate Policy Instruments for Rescuing and Transformation

5 | Needed: Effective Pandemic Economic Strategies with a Long-Run Vision

G A B R I E L F E L B E R M AY R

J O SE P H E . ST IG L I T Z

lost compared to last year. They should not target lost turnover — a bad predictor for lost value added. They should calibrate the replacement rate to narrow industry averages, not to individual firms, so that incentives to innovate and grow are not distorted.

The corona crisis causes enormous economic stress. Around the world, economic policy-makers have acted rapidly, but often in an uncoordinated and chaotic way. Because rescue programs are very expensive, it is crucial that they are effective and efficient. It is time now to assess the programs and recalibrate them if necessary.

Rescue programs are meant to stabilise the economy, not to be transformative. This would overburden the rescue policies and endanger their success. Of course, policies enabling transformations towards greener, more equitable, and more sustainable economies are extremely important. But they must be long-term rather than temporary, and they should be well thought-through and coordinated internationally rather than being enacted quickly. These features clearly collide with above criteria (i) and (ii). Moreover, by favouring certain firms, sectors, or technologies over others, transformative policies do distort the level playing field and cause redistribution. Rescuing and transforming are two different objectives. Remember Jan Tinbergen, the first Nobel prize winner in economics: to each objective, its own policy instrument.

Most economists agree that rescue programs should be (i) timely, (ii) temporary, and (iii) targeted. Some argue that they should also be (iv) transformative. Most countries score well on conditions (i) and (ii). But there are issues with criteria (iii) and (iv).

The meaning of “targeted” is often misunderstood as implying micro-management. Rather, it means that those who are most severely affected should receive most help, regardless of companies’ size, legal status, or industry affiliations. Most furlough programme for workers meet this condition; but many rescue packages for businesses do not.

So, they risk to be perceived as unfair, and they are likely to cause competitive distortions.

Governments should reform their programme. They should pay companies' a generous fraction of EBIT (earnings before interest and taxes)

GABRIEL FELBERMAYR is the President of the Kiel Institute for the World Economy

4 | Economic Measures Must Take Gender Issues into Account L I S A HA N Z L

sectors which have higher female employment shares, such as tourism and the hospitality industry, were more severely affected than others.

However, not only in the labor market are women put under additional strain. They also continue to carry out most of the unpaid work within households, even more so during the Covid-19 pandemic. Closures of schools and child care facilities massively increased pressure on families. In order to cope with this, women in Austria reduced their working hours by a third, while men only reduced theirs by a quarter, as a survey by SORA and Momentum Institute found.

The Covid-19 health crisis led many countries to enforce lockdowns on their populations, including the temporary closure of shops and businesses. Measures like these meant putting to a halt the engines that keep capitalist economies going. The result is and will be a major economic recession. Just like the pandemic itself, its economic ramifications will continue to bring structures of inequality into the limelight.

While well-paid individuals are far more likely to have the option to work from home, low-wage workers were either the ones who first lost their jobs, or the ones who maintained our basic needs, working in supermarkets and the health care sector under risky conditions. In short: The Covid-19 crisis is Female and Low-Paid.

Crises can be opportunities for cultural change. According to the above-cited study, “many businesses are now becoming much more aware of the childcare needs of their employees and respond by rapidly adopting more flexible work schedules and telecommuting options.”

To have a long-lasting impact on equality, economic measures must take gender issues into account. This is even more crucial as there is the very real possibility that the Covid-19 crisis reinforces existing inequities instead of erasing them.

A study by researchers at Northwestern University, the University of Mannheim, and the University of California showed that women will be hit disproportionately hard by this economic downturn. Service

LISA HANZL studies Economics at the Vienna University of Economics and Business, she is working on questions of inequality, wealth distribution, and gender; she is on the board of IG Wien, one of the Forum Alpbach’s many alumni clubs

20

The single biggest challenge in designing policies to help us recover from the economic crisis brought on by Covid-19 is ensuring that they are as effective as possible in the short run — creating the most jobs, with the highest “multipliers,” i.e. bang for the buck — at the same time as they address the long-run needs of societies. In the US, for instance, before the crisis, we faced a health crisis and an inequality crisis. At the same time, parts of the country faced a difficult transition as we moved from a twentieth century manufacturing economy to a twenty-first century service-sector, knowledge, and green economy.

This long-run vision is especially important because the crisis will leave us more in debt; it is important that we do what we can to improve the asset side of the nation’s balance sheet — our human, physical, and natural capital.

Covid-19 has exposed the deep divides in many societies, the great inequalities. And Covid-19 is likely to make these divides even larger.

It would be unconscionable if public spending exacerbated these gaps.

Unfortunately, some of the key programs in the US did just that. For instance, money dedicated to the small business program, supposedly to protect these most vulnerable firms, went disproportionately to the largest, best connected, and least needy.

Fortunately, there are many categories of expenditure that fit the bill. Europe’s recovery package, as currently formulated, seems very much constructed with these objectives in mind. Achieving these goals would, however, be greatly undermined if the money were not allocated to the countries most badly affected and with the least fiscal space to respond, and if the money were provided in the form of loans rather than grants.

Unfortunately, some governments — including the US — have used a fire-hose; literally trillions of dollars of spending, without any sense of priorities, any vision of what kind of economy the country wants to emerge after the pandemic. The combination of bad design and bad implementation meant that in the US the money didn’t achieve its stated goal — let alone put the economy in a better position for when it emerges from the pandemic. It didn’t prevent an unprecedented increase in unemployment (nearly 25% of the labor force); it didn’t save many of the fragile businesses; it didn’t prevent a very large economic downturn; and it didn’t do as good of a job as it should have — given what was spent — in protecting the most vulnerable.

Other countries showed that there were alternatives — programme that were more effective in protecting jobs and costing much less.

With the government spending so much money, the public should have greater say in shaping the post-pandemic economy. It should put conditions on the assistance, for instance that the employers pay liveable wages and that companies behave in a more environmentally sensitive way. Again, some countries have done this; others have not.

The large variety of policies adopted in response to Covid-19 provides many opportunities for countries to learn from each other. Regrettably, it now appears that the pandemic will be with us for far longer than many thought a few months ago. That means there will have to be more government spending and new government programme.

Hopefully, the new programme will be designed taking to heart what we have learned from what works and what doesn’t.

JOSEPH E. STIGLITZ is an American economist, a professor at Columbia University and recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

In his 2020 government report premier Li Keqiang clearly signaled that China is facing unprecedented challenges. The government would not set a growth target for 2020 because “China’s development is facing some impact factors that are difficult to predict”. These statements show that China’s leadership is highly alerted and aware of the tremendous challenges.

Yet, the leadership is also convinced that Covid-19 will not stop China’s economic rise.

Li says: “If we directly tackle the challenges […] and utilise the period of strategic opportunity for our country’s development, we will certainly overcome these difficulties”.

To further advance the vision of an economic and innovation superpower, China adopts an approach of strategic crisis management: in addition to generating short-term growth, economic policies and stimulus measures also serve long-term goals.

Markus Herrmann at a Breakout Session on the development of European standards for trade in Alpbach 2019

FROM CRISIS TO CONSOLIDATION How the Chinese government makes strategic use of the health crisis

MARKUS HERRMANN AND JOST WÜBBEKE

22

This reflects the belief that China can make use of the crisis and has a chance to win the upper hand in hegemonic competition and technological progress. Drawing on the experience of the 2008 financial crisis, Beijing fully understands that a worldwide crisis can shift the global economic power balance. This is an opportunity for China, as its economy is slowly getting back to work.

China’s leadership conceives of the current economic and industrial policy system as well suited to attain these ambitions. Covid-19 is no reason to initiate any systemic shifts, such as transitioning towards a free market economy, major SOE privatisation or a structurally improved level-playing field for foreign companies. Rather China’s strategic crisis management is reinforcing and accelerating existing policy directions.

China’s policy and stimulus measures are currently taking place on many levels: support for SMEs, monetary easing, consumer vouchers, employment, and social security measures, and so on. In this article, we focus on five areas characteristic of China’s strategic crisis management with a clear impact on foreign companies:

1.

NEW INFRASTRUCTURE: LINKING STIMULUS MEASURES TO FUTURE AMBITIONS

10-15% of total infrastructure investment.

Fast roll-out can cause quality problems.

Local governments such as Guangdong have increased local debt by issuing specialpurpose bonds and others are planning to do so.

China’s long-term strategy can especially be seen in the infrastructure stimulus. The current measures still focus very much on “traditional” infrastructure as a proven element of China’s policy toolbox.

2.

COMPANIES HAVE TO OPERATE IN A HIGHLY DYNAMIC POLICY ENVIRONMENT

However, by coining the term “new infrastructure” (新基建) the strategic crisis management also closely links the infrastructure stimulus with China’s long-term plans. Its exact scope is still unclear–various definitions include 5G, electric vehicle charging, and data centers.

The innovative turn is that it does not only consider physical infrastructure. The plan also focuses on software “infrastructure” for new digital applications, such as AI. Ideally, the stimulus will generate growth and accelerate the rollout of innovative technologies.

Many provinces have launched “new infrastructure” investment plans this year. Incomplete figures of local plans in five provinces suggest investments worth 1.4 trillion CNY in new infrastructure in the coming years.

Shanghai, for instance, plans to spend 60 billion CNY over the next three years, plus an additional 210 billion in private capital.

Taking 5G as an example, new policies have intensified these efforts over the last months: An MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Innovation Technology) policy promotes construction of 5G base stations. Various provinces have announced ambitious investments to boost the technology. If these plans are realised, China could have 4.6 million base stations by 2025, 600,000 more than in pre-pandemic estimates.

A faster deployment of 5G will mean faster adoption of business models using 5G such as smart city solutions and autonomous driving.

The effectiveness of the stimulus, however, is not yet clear. Infrastructure investments now generate less growth than back in 2008.

“New infrastructure” represents only about

23

In addition to infrastructure stimulus, the strategic crisis management triggered a highly dynamic policy situation. New policies and regulations are coming out at a high speed, in some cases resolving previous policy deadlocks. Within days, the government is taking decisions that substantially affect entire industries.

A case in point is the dynamic in the automotive industry. In early February, the standing committee of the Politburo decided to support the car industry, with two major consequences: First, the government extended the purchase subsidy for electric vehicles until end-2022. The subsidies were originally to be phased out by end-2020. In 2019, however, a partial rollback of subsidies had already brought about a steep decline in sales. Now as Covid-19 kicked in, extending the subsidies was a natural option. However, the subsidies suddenly set new strict requirements, such as a minimum e-range of 300km. Vehicles would only be subsidised up to 300,000 CNY. The speed at which the decision was taken has not left much time to react. Those not meeting the requirements will be disadvantaged compared to their competitors. Tesla, for instance, decided to decrease the price of its Model 3 Sedan to qualify for subsidies.

Second, the government extended the transition period for complying with the China 6 emission standard. As the emission standard creates significant pressure to reduce vehicle emissions, this step brings some relief for automotive companies.

In his 2020 government report premier Li Keqiang clearly signaled that China is facing unprecedented challenges. The government would not set a growth target for 2020 because “China’s development is facing some impact factors that are difficult to predict”. These statements show that China’s leadership is highly alerted and aware of the tremendous challenges.

Yet, the leadership is also convinced that Covid-19 will not stop China’s economic rise.

Li says: “If we directly tackle the challenges […] and utilise the period of strategic opportunity for our country’s development, we will certainly overcome these difficulties”.

To further advance the vision of an economic and innovation superpower, China adopts an approach of strategic crisis management: in addition to generating short-term growth, economic policies and stimulus measures also serve long-term goals.

Markus Herrmann at a Breakout Session on the development of European standards for trade in Alpbach 2019

FROM CRISIS TO CONSOLIDATION How the Chinese government makes strategic use of the health crisis

MARKUS HERRMANN AND JOST WÜBBEKE

22

This reflects the belief that China can make use of the crisis and has a chance to win the upper hand in hegemonic competition and technological progress. Drawing on the experience of the 2008 financial crisis, Beijing fully understands that a worldwide crisis can shift the global economic power balance. This is an opportunity for China, as its economy is slowly getting back to work.

China’s leadership conceives of the current economic and industrial policy system as well suited to attain these ambitions. Covid-19 is no reason to initiate any systemic shifts, such as transitioning towards a free market economy, major SOE privatisation or a structurally improved level-playing field for foreign companies. Rather China’s strategic crisis management is reinforcing and accelerating existing policy directions.

China’s policy and stimulus measures are currently taking place on many levels: support for SMEs, monetary easing, consumer vouchers, employment, and social security measures, and so on. In this article, we focus on five areas characteristic of China’s strategic crisis management with a clear impact on foreign companies:

1.

NEW INFRASTRUCTURE: LINKING STIMULUS MEASURES TO FUTURE AMBITIONS

10-15% of total infrastructure investment.

Fast roll-out can cause quality problems.

Local governments such as Guangdong have increased local debt by issuing specialpurpose bonds and others are planning to do so.

China’s long-term strategy can especially be seen in the infrastructure stimulus. The current measures still focus very much on “traditional” infrastructure as a proven element of China’s policy toolbox.

2.

COMPANIES HAVE TO OPERATE IN A HIGHLY DYNAMIC POLICY ENVIRONMENT

However, by coining the term “new infrastructure” (新基建) the strategic crisis management also closely links the infrastructure stimulus with China’s long-term plans. Its exact scope is still unclear–various definitions include 5G, electric vehicle charging, and data centers.

The innovative turn is that it does not only consider physical infrastructure. The plan also focuses on software “infrastructure” for new digital applications, such as AI. Ideally, the stimulus will generate growth and accelerate the rollout of innovative technologies.

Many provinces have launched “new infrastructure” investment plans this year. Incomplete figures of local plans in five provinces suggest investments worth 1.4 trillion CNY in new infrastructure in the coming years.

Shanghai, for instance, plans to spend 60 billion CNY over the next three years, plus an additional 210 billion in private capital.

Taking 5G as an example, new policies have intensified these efforts over the last months: An MIIT (Ministry of Industry and Innovation Technology) policy promotes construction of 5G base stations. Various provinces have announced ambitious investments to boost the technology. If these plans are realised, China could have 4.6 million base stations by 2025, 600,000 more than in pre-pandemic estimates.

A faster deployment of 5G will mean faster adoption of business models using 5G such as smart city solutions and autonomous driving.

The effectiveness of the stimulus, however, is not yet clear. Infrastructure investments now generate less growth than back in 2008.

“New infrastructure” represents only about

23

In addition to infrastructure stimulus, the strategic crisis management triggered a highly dynamic policy situation. New policies and regulations are coming out at a high speed, in some cases resolving previous policy deadlocks. Within days, the government is taking decisions that substantially affect entire industries.

A case in point is the dynamic in the automotive industry. In early February, the standing committee of the Politburo decided to support the car industry, with two major consequences: First, the government extended the purchase subsidy for electric vehicles until end-2022. The subsidies were originally to be phased out by end-2020. In 2019, however, a partial rollback of subsidies had already brought about a steep decline in sales. Now as Covid-19 kicked in, extending the subsidies was a natural option. However, the subsidies suddenly set new strict requirements, such as a minimum e-range of 300km. Vehicles would only be subsidised up to 300,000 CNY. The speed at which the decision was taken has not left much time to react. Those not meeting the requirements will be disadvantaged compared to their competitors. Tesla, for instance, decided to decrease the price of its Model 3 Sedan to qualify for subsidies.

Second, the government extended the transition period for complying with the China 6 emission standard. As the emission standard creates significant pressure to reduce vehicle emissions, this step brings some relief for automotive companies.

WIR GRATULIEREN ZUM 75-JÄHRIGEN BESTEHEN The two cases of the automotive industry show that for Chinese and foreign companies, Covid-19 means more uncertainty and surprises. In some cases, these have clear negative impacts on business, in others, they can be positive.

3.

GROWN REGULATORY CAPACITY DRIVES MORE FOREIGN MARKET ACCESS An obvious area of high policy dynamism during the crisis has been public health, where China’s new Corporate Social Credit System (CSCS) became an instrumental regulatory steering tool: mere weeks into the Covid-19 crisis, a substantial number of tailored local and central government CSCS policies were issued, introducing operational relaxations, incentives, and restrictions to guide companies to support public health objectives.

While the CSCS has proven its effectiveness as a tool able to respond to newly emerged and comprehensive market steering needs, this accomplishment falls under the broader trend of the Chinese government’s rapidly improving regulatory capacity.

We predict that this regulatory capacity will accelerate foreign market access. Shanghai Municipality’s recent acknowledgment that 20% of employment, 27% of GDP and 33% of tax revenues are contributed by foreign companies; this is a timely reminder of the importance of foreign investors for the Chinese market. In recent years, many foreign equity restrictions have been slashed and more relaxations announced, but an even faster and more comprehensive revision of the negative list both on national level and for FTZs can be expected.

This dynamism will also spill over to a more consequential implementation of recent policies to improve the business environment (优化营商环境条例). However, fundamental behind-the-border challenges for foreign companies will not disappear such as access to licenses and public procurement will not disappear.

4.

SHAPING AN ADVERSE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT IN CHINA’S INTERESTS While self-sufficiency policy addresses the US-China technology decoupling, China is further confronted with a fracturing global trading system. Despite reaching a fragile “ceasefire” in January, the Chinese economy has suffered from trade diversion caused by the US-China trade war.

The Covid-19 health crisis adds two dimensions: one, an international demand disruption with unclear recovery period and two, calls from European and Japanese leaders for less supply chain dependence on China, and in some cases, for reshoring of critical supplies, such as vaccines. In response to this challenging trade environment, we expect the Chinese leadership to reinforce three priorities: A top priority will be a quick signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), as evidenced by a recent MOFCOM (Ministry of Commerce) statement in March 2020. Aside from the geopolitical value of counterbalancing the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership), signing the RCEP will strengthen China’s trading relations with ASEAN, which in Q1 2020 emerged for the first time as China’s largest trading partner. It will also help to consolidate existing value chains in the face of calls for diversification.

resilient supply (产业链供应链区域化). Thereby, China will focus on those trading partners among economies participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that feature solid political trust and alignment on trading rules — with an actual “Sino-centric trading community” taking clearer shape.

To support these priorities, we further expect the BRI to scale back its connectivity programs from far-flung Latin America, the politically instable Middle East, and from Central Asia, due to its underdeveloped manufacturing capacities, and reinforce its focus on ASEAN.

KEY IMPLICATIONS FOR THE POST-COVID-19 ERA FOR FOREIGN CORPORATES DOING BUSINESS IN AND WITH CHINA China’s strategic crisis management as portrayed above has two fundamental implications for foreign business: First, the high dynamic of new policies and regulations exposes foreign enterprises to additional risk. Detailed assessment of these dynamics will be key to successful operation in the Chinese market.

Second, the disruptions of global trade and China’s policy response will require corporate boards to review their strategic footprint in the Asia Pacific region.

Secondly, Chinese trade diplomacy will expedite processes for ongoing FTA feasibility studies and negotiations. MOFCOM statements already call for acceleration of the tariff-centered negotiations with Cambodia, Israel, Norway, Sri Lanka, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, among others. There are also clear signs of momentum in the China-Japan-South Korea FTA negotiations.

Thirdly, another policy direction we expect — inferring from a recent Politburo meeting — is China’s efforts to regionalise its own industrial supply chains for more secure and

24

JOST WÜBBEKE and MARKUS HERRMANN are both Direcors of Sinolytics, a European research-based consultancy entirely focused on China and the policy-business nexus; Sinolytics is present in Berlin, Zurich, and Beijing

Fundamental für Österreich Wir sind jeden Tag Teil des Lebens von über 1,9 Mio. Kundinnen und Kunden und sichern die österreichweite, flächendeckende Nahversorgung mit Lebensmitteln und Produkten des täglichen Bedarfs – in 2.570 Filialen und dem BILLA Online Shop.

Diese Aufgabe nehmen wir sehr ernst.

Wir sind stolz, seit Jahren verlässlicher Partner des europäischen Forums Alpbach sein zu dürfen und gratulieren herzlich zum Jubiläum.

WIR GRATULIEREN ZUM 75-JÄHRIGEN BESTEHEN The two cases of the automotive industry show that for Chinese and foreign companies, Covid-19 means more uncertainty and surprises. In some cases, these have clear negative impacts on business, in others, they can be positive.

3.

GROWN REGULATORY CAPACITY DRIVES MORE FOREIGN MARKET ACCESS An obvious area of high policy dynamism during the crisis has been public health, where China’s new Corporate Social Credit System (CSCS) became an instrumental regulatory steering tool: mere weeks into the Covid-19 crisis, a substantial number of tailored local and central government CSCS policies were issued, introducing operational relaxations, incentives, and restrictions to guide companies to support public health objectives.

While the CSCS has proven its effectiveness as a tool able to respond to newly emerged and comprehensive market steering needs, this accomplishment falls under the broader trend of the Chinese government’s rapidly improving regulatory capacity.

We predict that this regulatory capacity will accelerate foreign market access. Shanghai Municipality’s recent acknowledgment that 20% of employment, 27% of GDP and 33% of tax revenues are contributed by foreign companies; this is a timely reminder of the importance of foreign investors for the Chinese market. In recent years, many foreign equity restrictions have been slashed and more relaxations announced, but an even faster and more comprehensive revision of the negative list both on national level and for FTZs can be expected.

This dynamism will also spill over to a more consequential implementation of recent policies to improve the business environment (优化营商环境条例). However, fundamental behind-the-border challenges for foreign companies will not disappear such as access to licenses and public procurement will not disappear.

4.

SHAPING AN ADVERSE EXTERNAL ENVIRONMENT IN CHINA’S INTERESTS While self-sufficiency policy addresses the US-China technology decoupling, China is further confronted with a fracturing global trading system. Despite reaching a fragile “ceasefire” in January, the Chinese economy has suffered from trade diversion caused by the US-China trade war.

The Covid-19 health crisis adds two dimensions: one, an international demand disruption with unclear recovery period and two, calls from European and Japanese leaders for less supply chain dependence on China, and in some cases, for reshoring of critical supplies, such as vaccines. In response to this challenging trade environment, we expect the Chinese leadership to reinforce three priorities: A top priority will be a quick signing of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), as evidenced by a recent MOFCOM (Ministry of Commerce) statement in March 2020. Aside from the geopolitical value of counterbalancing the CPTPP (Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership), signing the RCEP will strengthen China’s trading relations with ASEAN, which in Q1 2020 emerged for the first time as China’s largest trading partner. It will also help to consolidate existing value chains in the face of calls for diversification.

resilient supply (产业链供应链区域化). Thereby, China will focus on those trading partners among economies participating in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) that feature solid political trust and alignment on trading rules — with an actual “Sino-centric trading community” taking clearer shape.

To support these priorities, we further expect the BRI to scale back its connectivity programs from far-flung Latin America, the politically instable Middle East, and from Central Asia, due to its underdeveloped manufacturing capacities, and reinforce its focus on ASEAN.

KEY IMPLICATIONS FOR THE POST-COVID-19 ERA FOR FOREIGN CORPORATES DOING BUSINESS IN AND WITH CHINA China’s strategic crisis management as portrayed above has two fundamental implications for foreign business: First, the high dynamic of new policies and regulations exposes foreign enterprises to additional risk. Detailed assessment of these dynamics will be key to successful operation in the Chinese market.

Second, the disruptions of global trade and China’s policy response will require corporate boards to review their strategic footprint in the Asia Pacific region.

Secondly, Chinese trade diplomacy will expedite processes for ongoing FTA feasibility studies and negotiations. MOFCOM statements already call for acceleration of the tariff-centered negotiations with Cambodia, Israel, Norway, Sri Lanka, and the Gulf Cooperation Council, among others. There are also clear signs of momentum in the China-Japan-South Korea FTA negotiations.

Thirdly, another policy direction we expect — inferring from a recent Politburo meeting — is China’s efforts to regionalise its own industrial supply chains for more secure and

24

JOST WÜBBEKE and MARKUS HERRMANN are both Direcors of Sinolytics, a European research-based consultancy entirely focused on China and the policy-business nexus; Sinolytics is present in Berlin, Zurich, and Beijing

Fundamental für Österreich Wir sind jeden Tag Teil des Lebens von über 1,9 Mio. Kundinnen und Kunden und sichern die österreichweite, flächendeckende Nahversorgung mit Lebensmitteln und Produkten des täglichen Bedarfs – in 2.570 Filialen und dem BILLA Online Shop.

Diese Aufgabe nehmen wir sehr ernst.

Wir sind stolz, seit Jahren verlässlicher Partner des europäischen Forums Alpbach sein zu dürfen und gratulieren herzlich zum Jubiläum.

FLAGS OF THE FORUM

Photos of flags, in front of the blue sky or the mountain scenery, have become part of the visual identity of the Forum over the years. Although it’s not possible to show all participating nations anymore (as this would amount to more than 100 flags), there are still around 50 flags of participating nations shown during every Forum. And on a side note, the flags kept the EFA busy for years.

Some flags were much sought-after and kept disappearing at night and their whereabouts are still a mystery today.

In 1949 the European flag with a green E was hoisted for the first time in Alpbach together with a “College-flag” which was designed by the artist Werner Scholz. The flag of the Austrian College showed a phoenix flying up to the sky with a hammer as a symbol of reconstruction and survival. Both flags belonged to the ensemble of flags during the Forum in many following years.

If you have ever been to the European Forum Alpbach or saw a picture that was taken during the Forum you have most likely seen the flags waving in the wind. They usually stand for the nations represented at the Forum in the respective year. To many they are a symbol of diversity and international cooperation and friendship.

However, the “Spirit of Alpbach” teaches us to question everything and this is exactly what artist Andrea Salzmann is doing in her work at the Forum this year. In her piece she challenges the — some might argue — cliché picture of flags in the romantic sunset of Alpbach. While working with her we have uncovered the history of flags at the Forum. Here is a little EFA vexillology, as the study of flags is called.

26

27

FLAGS OF THE FORUM

Photos of flags, in front of the blue sky or the mountain scenery, have become part of the visual identity of the Forum over the years. Although it’s not possible to show all participating nations anymore (as this would amount to more than 100 flags), there are still around 50 flags of participating nations shown during every Forum. And on a side note, the flags kept the EFA busy for years.

Some flags were much sought-after and kept disappearing at night and their whereabouts are still a mystery today.

In 1949 the European flag with a green E was hoisted for the first time in Alpbach together with a “College-flag” which was designed by the artist Werner Scholz. The flag of the Austrian College showed a phoenix flying up to the sky with a hammer as a symbol of reconstruction and survival. Both flags belonged to the ensemble of flags during the Forum in many following years.

If you have ever been to the European Forum Alpbach or saw a picture that was taken during the Forum you have most likely seen the flags waving in the wind. They usually stand for the nations represented at the Forum in the respective year. To many they are a symbol of diversity and international cooperation and friendship.

However, the “Spirit of Alpbach” teaches us to question everything and this is exactly what artist Andrea Salzmann is doing in her work at the Forum this year. In her piece she challenges the — some might argue — cliché picture of flags in the romantic sunset of Alpbach. While working with her we have uncovered the history of flags at the Forum. Here is a little EFA vexillology, as the study of flags is called.

26

27

No border, no nation ANDREA SALZMANN

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

30 words make up Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The same number of flags will wave in front of the Congress Centre in Alpbach this year. But who has ever seen such flags? Germany looks a little strange and what happened to India?

Andrea Salzmann made new flags bearing the hope of a better world. In her view,

identity should not be a derivation of artificially created nation states, but from the Declaration of Human Rights, the world community’s consensus on what makes up for our civilisation. To implement this vision the national flags and our societies as we know them must transform. For the artist this does not necessarily mean a complete deconstruction, which is why you will recognise certain elements from the flags

In 1979 Gustav Peichl, André Heller and Georg Haberl founded the Artist Free State of Artopia. In addition to its own constitution, a newspaper, an anthem by Frank Zappa (“Artopia – Kuckuck, Artopia – Gloria”) and a radio and television station, a flag was also created. The Artopia flag showed a hedgehog and was created after a drawing by the artist Johann Hauser.

28

29

you know, such as the colour ratios. But the strong red, blue, black, yellow will liquify, dissolve and blend with other colours until the nation is a memory on which we build a more united, just and peaceful world. The European Forum Alpbach is the community to fight for these ideals and will therefore wave Andrea Salzmann’s flags as a symbol for the process of overcoming old lines that divide us and strive for more.

No border, no nation ANDREA SALZMANN

“All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.”

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

30 words make up Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The same number of flags will wave in front of the Congress Centre in Alpbach this year. But who has ever seen such flags? Germany looks a little strange and what happened to India?

Andrea Salzmann made new flags bearing the hope of a better world. In her view,

identity should not be a derivation of artificially created nation states, but from the Declaration of Human Rights, the world community’s consensus on what makes up for our civilisation. To implement this vision the national flags and our societies as we know them must transform. For the artist this does not necessarily mean a complete deconstruction, which is why you will recognise certain elements from the flags

In 1979 Gustav Peichl, André Heller and Georg Haberl founded the Artist Free State of Artopia. In addition to its own constitution, a newspaper, an anthem by Frank Zappa (“Artopia – Kuckuck, Artopia – Gloria”) and a radio and television station, a flag was also created. The Artopia flag showed a hedgehog and was created after a drawing by the artist Johann Hauser.

28

29

you know, such as the colour ratios. But the strong red, blue, black, yellow will liquify, dissolve and blend with other colours until the nation is a memory on which we build a more united, just and peaceful world. The European Forum Alpbach is the community to fight for these ideals and will therefore wave Andrea Salzmann’s flags as a symbol for the process of overcoming old lines that divide us and strive for more.

HOW DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY CAN ADVANCE EUROPEAN COMPETITIVENESS PETER GANTEN

proprietary cloud services and programme from just a few providers. And especially since Trump came to power it became even clearer, that this dependency might be used for some serious threatening (like cutting back fundamental services).

Secondly, there is the dimension of innovative ability and competitiveness. Digital sovereignty means that states and companies (and also individuals) are able to independently improve their processes and to innovate based on data they generate and ideas they have. This implies that they must be in full control of the program code which runs their processes and of the data they generate while running machines or interacting with citizens or customers.

THE ROLE OF OPEN SOURCE

The European domestic market is one of the largest in the world with around 500 million consumers and can pride itself upon exceptional rules that allow fair and free competition. These are great conditions to flourish as a company and to venture into the global market, one would think. But as of today, Europe failed to deliver on this promise in the digital sector: Although there are numerous European companies that offer digital products or services, the market is dominated by a few American and Asian corporations. This has a massive negative effect on the innovative power and competitiveness of Europe in all industries, because companies become more and more dependent on platforms controlled

by foreign enterprises. Their data and the logic behind business processes is stored overseas without reach and, most important, is often not usable for innovative developments. Digital sovereignty is the prerequisite to reverse this tragic development.

WHY DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY IS IMPORTANT: TWO MAIN ASPECTS There are several aspects that can be considered being a valid part of digital sovereignty. But to take a closer look at the economic implications,

30

two aspects should be highlighted: First, there is the dimension of trust and independence. Digital sovereignty is not possible, if organisations cannot trust the systems they use. Therefore, to achieve digital sovereignty, states, companies and other organisations must be able to verify that the software they are using is safe: the code must be revisable, it must be possible to fix bugs and to locate backdoors or other security issues independently. Furthermore, digital sovereignty means choice as opposed to dependence on a single vendor. Without choice, organisations might become susceptible to blackmailing. The unfortunate reality today is that states and companies depend on

All aspects mentioned­— ability to revise code, to find bugs, to improve processes and to freely use data — are not achievable without the ability for an organisation to control the software it uses, which means access to the source code. And since it is impossible for organisations and states to rewrite everything from scratch, Open Source is the only possible way to achieve digital sovereignty. It is therefore not surprising that Open Source played a central role in the digital development of the last 20 years. Especially Silicon Valley giants like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter built their enterprises, their products, and their success on Open Source software.

That by the way increasingly also applies for a lot of European companies like Bosch, Daimler, and Zalando.

Open Source enables these companies to decide which data they collect and what they do with it. That is the basis for innovation.

But Open Source is also about security — which is essential for the business models of most companies today. Imagine what would happen, if a hacker could find out what one has searched at Google or ordered at Amazon!

Moreover, by using Open Source companies can control the code running in their data centres completely and supply the software to as many users as needed without negotiating

on licencing terms with other vendors. They also can adopt the software to new needs at manageable costs which leads back to being innovative.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE HYPERSCALERS The only alternative to the usage of Open Source code are proprietary cloud services provided by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and a few others.

These services come with a number of problems: Communication is not trustable because it is not clear, and it cannot be audited who has access to it. Furthermore, end user organisations become heavily dependent on these cloud services, so that they have to pay any price and use it under any condition dictated by the providers without any choice to use someone else’s offering. But worst of all, all providers of proprietary cloud services use the data provided to them by their users like usage patterns or files uploaded to improve their services and create new offerings. That might translate to: if you have an employee who is an excel-wizard, Microsoft can detect this by automatically observing the usage of the cloud-based version of Excel and use this information to improve its other product, LinkedIn, making it easier for recruiters to find people with sound Excel knowledge. And it means that your service providers might use more about your customers and the usage of services you provide. And they will use this information to successfully compete against you. This leads to a high level of technical dependency and a very bad environment for innovation.

GAIA-X AS A WAY TO DIGITAL INNOVATION AND SELF-DETERMINATION Therefore, a distinct approach and the establishment of a different kind of infrastructure is needed urgently, an ecosystem of various providers, that enables self-determination and innovative ability of the European economy.

This is exactly where the Gaia-X-Project initiated by Germany and now launched as a French-German cooperation is aiming at. The

31

concept of Gaia-X is to create a federated data infrastructure by the use of open technologies, that enhances transparency and visibility on the provider side, advances innovations in the data economy, clearly commits to interoperability of offerings and links up companies of all sizes. To implement this infrastructure, a central organisation at the European level has been founded that will lay the economic, organisational and technical foundations.

A crucial base for a sustained prosperity of this initiative is building an open, interoperable software stack for the provisioning of services in the cloud as well as in data centres of companies and public agencies. Only this will make it possible for every organisation to make a “make or buy” decision and to choose from a variety of potential service providers.

As a group of companies within the OSB Alliance we therefore submitted the idea of creating a federated Open Source stack as a basis for applications and services. This project called “Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS)” is an official part of GAIA-X today.

MAKING EUROPEAN ECONOMY MORE INNOVATIVE AND DIGITALLY SOVEREIGN We need innovation in Europe, new deve­ lopments and new products, to strengthen competition and to close the gap on dominant enterprises. The solution is not to establish a single competitive tech giant woken in a still to discover European Silicon Valley, but to create a federated cloud infrastructure in which plenty of companies can yield their excellence in spirit of the European idea. The link is called digital sovereignty. That is why we should make it a priority in Europe — in the realms of states and administrations, in economic activity, and also in social interactions.

The innovation will follow. We are already on the right track, let us pursue it further with strong determination.

PETER GANTEN is CEO of Univention and Chairman of the Open Source Business Alliance; he is committed to promote a European perspective of digitalisation that is based on openness and trust

HOW DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY CAN ADVANCE EUROPEAN COMPETITIVENESS PETER GANTEN

proprietary cloud services and programme from just a few providers. And especially since Trump came to power it became even clearer, that this dependency might be used for some serious threatening (like cutting back fundamental services).

Secondly, there is the dimension of innovative ability and competitiveness. Digital sovereignty means that states and companies (and also individuals) are able to independently improve their processes and to innovate based on data they generate and ideas they have. This implies that they must be in full control of the program code which runs their processes and of the data they generate while running machines or interacting with citizens or customers.

THE ROLE OF OPEN SOURCE

The European domestic market is one of the largest in the world with around 500 million consumers and can pride itself upon exceptional rules that allow fair and free competition. These are great conditions to flourish as a company and to venture into the global market, one would think. But as of today, Europe failed to deliver on this promise in the digital sector: Although there are numerous European companies that offer digital products or services, the market is dominated by a few American and Asian corporations. This has a massive negative effect on the innovative power and competitiveness of Europe in all industries, because companies become more and more dependent on platforms controlled

by foreign enterprises. Their data and the logic behind business processes is stored overseas without reach and, most important, is often not usable for innovative developments. Digital sovereignty is the prerequisite to reverse this tragic development.

WHY DIGITAL SOVEREIGNTY IS IMPORTANT: TWO MAIN ASPECTS There are several aspects that can be considered being a valid part of digital sovereignty. But to take a closer look at the economic implications,

30

two aspects should be highlighted: First, there is the dimension of trust and independence. Digital sovereignty is not possible, if organisations cannot trust the systems they use. Therefore, to achieve digital sovereignty, states, companies and other organisations must be able to verify that the software they are using is safe: the code must be revisable, it must be possible to fix bugs and to locate backdoors or other security issues independently. Furthermore, digital sovereignty means choice as opposed to dependence on a single vendor. Without choice, organisations might become susceptible to blackmailing. The unfortunate reality today is that states and companies depend on

All aspects mentioned­— ability to revise code, to find bugs, to improve processes and to freely use data — are not achievable without the ability for an organisation to control the software it uses, which means access to the source code. And since it is impossible for organisations and states to rewrite everything from scratch, Open Source is the only possible way to achieve digital sovereignty. It is therefore not surprising that Open Source played a central role in the digital development of the last 20 years. Especially Silicon Valley giants like Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Twitter built their enterprises, their products, and their success on Open Source software.

That by the way increasingly also applies for a lot of European companies like Bosch, Daimler, and Zalando.

Open Source enables these companies to decide which data they collect and what they do with it. That is the basis for innovation.

But Open Source is also about security — which is essential for the business models of most companies today. Imagine what would happen, if a hacker could find out what one has searched at Google or ordered at Amazon!

Moreover, by using Open Source companies can control the code running in their data centres completely and supply the software to as many users as needed without negotiating

on licencing terms with other vendors. They also can adopt the software to new needs at manageable costs which leads back to being innovative.

THE PROBLEM WITH THE HYPERSCALERS The only alternative to the usage of Open Source code are proprietary cloud services provided by Microsoft, Google, Amazon, and a few others.

These services come with a number of problems: Communication is not trustable because it is not clear, and it cannot be audited who has access to it. Furthermore, end user organisations become heavily dependent on these cloud services, so that they have to pay any price and use it under any condition dictated by the providers without any choice to use someone else’s offering. But worst of all, all providers of proprietary cloud services use the data provided to them by their users like usage patterns or files uploaded to improve their services and create new offerings. That might translate to: if you have an employee who is an excel-wizard, Microsoft can detect this by automatically observing the usage of the cloud-based version of Excel and use this information to improve its other product, LinkedIn, making it easier for recruiters to find people with sound Excel knowledge. And it means that your service providers might use more about your customers and the usage of services you provide. And they will use this information to successfully compete against you. This leads to a high level of technical dependency and a very bad environment for innovation.

GAIA-X AS A WAY TO DIGITAL INNOVATION AND SELF-DETERMINATION Therefore, a distinct approach and the establishment of a different kind of infrastructure is needed urgently, an ecosystem of various providers, that enables self-determination and innovative ability of the European economy.

This is exactly where the Gaia-X-Project initiated by Germany and now launched as a French-German cooperation is aiming at. The

31

concept of Gaia-X is to create a federated data infrastructure by the use of open technologies, that enhances transparency and visibility on the provider side, advances innovations in the data economy, clearly commits to interoperability of offerings and links up companies of all sizes. To implement this infrastructure, a central organisation at the European level has been founded that will lay the economic, organisational and technical foundations.

A crucial base for a sustained prosperity of this initiative is building an open, interoperable software stack for the provisioning of services in the cloud as well as in data centres of companies and public agencies. Only this will make it possible for every organisation to make a “make or buy” decision and to choose from a variety of potential service providers.

As a group of companies within the OSB Alliance we therefore submitted the idea of creating a federated Open Source stack as a basis for applications and services. This project called “Sovereign Cloud Stack (SCS)” is an official part of GAIA-X today.

MAKING EUROPEAN ECONOMY MORE INNOVATIVE AND DIGITALLY SOVEREIGN We need innovation in Europe, new deve­ lopments and new products, to strengthen competition and to close the gap on dominant enterprises. The solution is not to establish a single competitive tech giant woken in a still to discover European Silicon Valley, but to create a federated cloud infrastructure in which plenty of companies can yield their excellence in spirit of the European idea. The link is called digital sovereignty. That is why we should make it a priority in Europe — in the realms of states and administrations, in economic activity, and also in social interactions.

The innovation will follow. We are already on the right track, let us pursue it further with strong determination.

PETER GANTEN is CEO of Univention and Chairman of the Open Source Business Alliance; he is committed to promote a European perspective of digitalisation that is based on openness and trust

BUILDING RESILIENCE IN A POST-COVID AFRICA OY I N DA M O L A A D E G B OY E , T HO KO Z A N I C H I L E N G A- BU TAO, P R I T C HA R D M U K U KA

The Covid-19 pandemic has challenged nations with even the most sophisticated education and healthcare systems in the world significantly. Experts have predicted that Africa’s already fragile health systems could crumble under the weight of the virus.

The Africa Alpbach Network reflects on policy priorities in the health and education sector. While the numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths recorded on the continent is still comparatively lower than elsewhere, the number of infections and deaths in Africa is increasing. At the same time, the politics of screening, testing, and reporting accurate figures, as well as the role of international health organisations in Africa is causing confusion and scepticism. Covid-19 is not Africa’s first battle with a pandemic. Given its history of fighting against widespread infectious diseases like the Ebola virus, African governments have displayed resilience by leveraging on previous knowledge and taking quick precautionary measures such as

nationwide lockdowns and flight restrictions.

But swift lockdown measures will not be enough to slow the effects of Covid-19 in African countries, which for the most part, were already battling with weak education and healthcare systems. What is the policy outlook for the continent post-Covid-19 and how can the continent build resilience ahead of the next inevitable global crisis?

INCREASED AND STRATEGIC INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION AND HEALTH The education and the health sector cannot be excluded from each other as they prioritise human development and the capacity for social and economic prosperity on the continent.

In Nigeria for instance, both education and health remain critically underfunded. In 2020, Nigeria allocated 6.9% and 4.5% to the

32

education and health sectors respectively (according to the Nigerian newspaper The Punch). The government’s priorities did not meet the people’s needs.

On the other hand, some African countries are struggling with ineffective investment in education and health. In South Africa, for instance, education has one of the largest shares of the country’s budget at a staggering 320.5 billion ZAR (South African National Treasury, 2017). In the past couple of years, the country’s Department of Health has been championing and planning a National Health Insurance system that is intended to upgrade the current public healthcare system and mitigate the exorbitant costs of private healthcare. Both the education and health systems in South Africa need better infrastructure, better procurement and resourcing systems and more implementation of sanctions against corruption and mismanagement at all levels of the system. Therefore, the approaches to

building resilience on the continent need to be tailored to each country’s needs and challenges; and each country in turn needs to strengthen its region and the wider continent with strategies for resilience.

HOMEGROWN SOLUTIONS AND GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS The 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa pushed some African countries to develop local capacity in disease preparedness and responsiveness.

Countries like Liberia, for instance, erected facilities for screening and diagnosis, while the Nigeria Centre for Disease control has an independent Covid-19 emergency response team of experts, working in the interest of the public. We have also seen an emergence of home grown responses like the 1 USD Covid-19 testing kit in Senegal and the controversial Covid-19 cure from Madagascar.

Since there is no known cure for Covid-19, pharmaceutical companies are rising up to the occasion with existing medicines that can manage symptoms. With only 375 drug makers serving Africa’s 1.3 billion people compared to 5,000 and 10,500 manufacturers in India and China’s approximately 1.4 billion population each. Already, small and medium-sized enterprises have become key players by producing locally-made face masks, hand sanitisers and disinfectants.

Hence, investment in public health and a thriving local drug industry can foster access to medicines and preparedness in the event of disease outbreaks.

The education sector has not always been resilient against pandemics. During the last Ebola outbreak in West Africa, countries that were the hardest hit closed schools for months. The current Covid-19 lockdown has forced the closure of schools, which has led to an increase in another set of problems for learners. These problems include hunger, as some children depend on schools for their meals and lose valuable learning time. There have been initiatives to assist both these problems through the distribution of food parcels and shifting learning to online, television, and radio. In Lagos, the epicentre of the Covid-19 crisis in Nigeria, the Lagos state government launched radio and television lessons for primary and secondary learners.

However, this resilience has uneven results as the digital divide in Africa generally affects learners’ access to education tools during times such as this. Moreover, inequality is now showing itself more as learners in private education are more resourced than those in public education.

Education policies should thus focus on scaling up information and communication technology policies to facilitate more e-learning in future.

That being said, universal access to ICT can only be achieved if there is access to clean reliable energy. Africa has a huge energy deficit and with very high tariffs. Zambia has an electrifications rate of only about 19% in rural areas. Although among the lowest in the SADC region, electricity tariffs are about 7c/Kwh which are very high for those in rural areas who earn less than $1.5 per day. Access to electricity is still constrained; but many African governments, including Zambia, have enacted the open electricity access policy to open the electricity markets to investments.

This can help build resilience in education and health, as investments in electricity throughout the continent will provide the necessary infrastructure to maintain the education and health sectors in times of crisis.

With all this unevenness in learning, there is still a role for education to play in resilience, through education about managing a pandemic and caring for those around you. The earlier HIV/AIDS epidemic showed the role that education can play in destigmatisation, encouraging treatment, and creating social support for people living with HIV/AIDS. This needs to continue in the post-Covid era in Africa because the more destigmatisation and treatment education happens in schools, the more hopeful we can be that African children will learn a different type of resilience — empathy and understanding that allows everyone to be transparent about their health and get treatment as soon as possible. Stigma literally kills.

Education policies can also focus on enhancing access to information and communication technology to facilitate e-learning. In Zambia, the literacy levels are very high and in most rural areas exceed 60% of the population.

This in part has been due to the free education policies.

33

DATA-DRIVEN DECISION-MAKING Despite capacity and resource allocation pressures to prioritise action over research, quality data, and evidence have longer term benefits ahead of the next inevitable crisis. Africa has peculiar demographic indicators ranging from its high youth population to its record of infectious diseases. Hence, the continent can benefit from a homegrown predictive modelling, by getting real-time data possibly by leveraging its high mobile penetration to guide decision making. Countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea perhaps have developed a better sense of data utilisation, which will be useful in the ongoing crisis. In the Sierra Leone, real time data was crucial to school reopening decisions as the government used mobile phones to get monthly updates and track schools with pressing needs.

In all, one major threat to Africa is a susceptibility to externally-imposed agenda.

Covid-19 challenges the narrative that infectious diseases come from Africa to the West, and not the other way round. Given that many Western countries are relatively inexperienced in handling public health crises of this magnitude, this is the time for Africa to look inwards and shape a response that prioritises the needs and interests of its people, while shining the light for the world through strategic innovation.

OYINDAMOLA ADEGBOYE, THOKOZANI CHILENGA-BUTAO, and PRITCHARD MUKUKA are members of the Africa Alpbach Network (AAN).

The Africa Alpbach Network (AAN) was founded by a group of young Africans who attended the Forum and desired to keep the “spirit of Alpbach ” alive through an alumni network that reflects on the needs and aspirations of the African continent.

The AAN seeks to foster continental and international dialogue and cooperation among young Africans and between Africa and Europe. The AAN is contributing to the EFA e.g. by recommending African speakers.

BUILDING RESILIENCE IN A POST-COVID AFRICA OY I N DA M O L A A D E G B OY E , T HO KO Z A N I C H I L E N G A- BU TAO, P R I T C HA R D M U K U KA

The Covid-19 pandemic has challenged nations with even the most sophisticated education and healthcare systems in the world significantly. Experts have predicted that Africa’s already fragile health systems could crumble under the weight of the virus.

The Africa Alpbach Network reflects on policy priorities in the health and education sector. While the numbers of Covid-19 cases and deaths recorded on the continent is still comparatively lower than elsewhere, the number of infections and deaths in Africa is increasing. At the same time, the politics of screening, testing, and reporting accurate figures, as well as the role of international health organisations in Africa is causing confusion and scepticism. Covid-19 is not Africa’s first battle with a pandemic. Given its history of fighting against widespread infectious diseases like the Ebola virus, African governments have displayed resilience by leveraging on previous knowledge and taking quick precautionary measures such as

nationwide lockdowns and flight restrictions.

But swift lockdown measures will not be enough to slow the effects of Covid-19 in African countries, which for the most part, were already battling with weak education and healthcare systems. What is the policy outlook for the continent post-Covid-19 and how can the continent build resilience ahead of the next inevitable global crisis?

INCREASED AND STRATEGIC INVESTMENT IN EDUCATION AND HEALTH The education and the health sector cannot be excluded from each other as they prioritise human development and the capacity for social and economic prosperity on the continent.

In Nigeria for instance, both education and health remain critically underfunded. In 2020, Nigeria allocated 6.9% and 4.5% to the

32

education and health sectors respectively (according to the Nigerian newspaper The Punch). The government’s priorities did not meet the people’s needs.

On the other hand, some African countries are struggling with ineffective investment in education and health. In South Africa, for instance, education has one of the largest shares of the country’s budget at a staggering 320.5 billion ZAR (South African National Treasury, 2017). In the past couple of years, the country’s Department of Health has been championing and planning a National Health Insurance system that is intended to upgrade the current public healthcare system and mitigate the exorbitant costs of private healthcare. Both the education and health systems in South Africa need better infrastructure, better procurement and resourcing systems and more implementation of sanctions against corruption and mismanagement at all levels of the system. Therefore, the approaches to

building resilience on the continent need to be tailored to each country’s needs and challenges; and each country in turn needs to strengthen its region and the wider continent with strategies for resilience.

HOMEGROWN SOLUTIONS AND GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS The 2014 Ebola outbreak in Africa pushed some African countries to develop local capacity in disease preparedness and responsiveness.

Countries like Liberia, for instance, erected facilities for screening and diagnosis, while the Nigeria Centre for Disease control has an independent Covid-19 emergency response team of experts, working in the interest of the public. We have also seen an emergence of home grown responses like the 1 USD Covid-19 testing kit in Senegal and the controversial Covid-19 cure from Madagascar.

Since there is no known cure for Covid-19, pharmaceutical companies are rising up to the occasion with existing medicines that can manage symptoms. With only 375 drug makers serving Africa’s 1.3 billion people compared to 5,000 and 10,500 manufacturers in India and China’s approximately 1.4 billion population each. Already, small and medium-sized enterprises have become key players by producing locally-made face masks, hand sanitisers and disinfectants.

Hence, investment in public health and a thriving local drug industry can foster access to medicines and preparedness in the event of disease outbreaks.

The education sector has not always been resilient against pandemics. During the last Ebola outbreak in West Africa, countries that were the hardest hit closed schools for months. The current Covid-19 lockdown has forced the closure of schools, which has led to an increase in another set of problems for learners. These problems include hunger, as some children depend on schools for their meals and lose valuable learning time. There have been initiatives to assist both these problems through the distribution of food parcels and shifting learning to online, television, and radio. In Lagos, the epicentre of the Covid-19 crisis in Nigeria, the Lagos state government launched radio and television lessons for primary and secondary learners.

However, this resilience has uneven results as the digital divide in Africa generally affects learners’ access to education tools during times such as this. Moreover, inequality is now showing itself more as learners in private education are more resourced than those in public education.

Education policies should thus focus on scaling up information and communication technology policies to facilitate more e-learning in future.

That being said, universal access to ICT can only be achieved if there is access to clean reliable energy. Africa has a huge energy deficit and with very high tariffs. Zambia has an electrifications rate of only about 19% in rural areas. Although among the lowest in the SADC region, electricity tariffs are about 7c/Kwh which are very high for those in rural areas who earn less than $1.5 per day. Access to electricity is still constrained; but many African governments, including Zambia, have enacted the open electricity access policy to open the electricity markets to investments.

This can help build resilience in education and health, as investments in electricity throughout the continent will provide the necessary infrastructure to maintain the education and health sectors in times of crisis.

With all this unevenness in learning, there is still a role for education to play in resilience, through education about managing a pandemic and caring for those around you. The earlier HIV/AIDS epidemic showed the role that education can play in destigmatisation, encouraging treatment, and creating social support for people living with HIV/AIDS. This needs to continue in the post-Covid era in Africa because the more destigmatisation and treatment education happens in schools, the more hopeful we can be that African children will learn a different type of resilience — empathy and understanding that allows everyone to be transparent about their health and get treatment as soon as possible. Stigma literally kills.

Education policies can also focus on enhancing access to information and communication technology to facilitate e-learning. In Zambia, the literacy levels are very high and in most rural areas exceed 60% of the population.

This in part has been due to the free education policies.

33

DATA-DRIVEN DECISION-MAKING Despite capacity and resource allocation pressures to prioritise action over research, quality data, and evidence have longer term benefits ahead of the next inevitable crisis. Africa has peculiar demographic indicators ranging from its high youth population to its record of infectious diseases. Hence, the continent can benefit from a homegrown predictive modelling, by getting real-time data possibly by leveraging its high mobile penetration to guide decision making. Countries like Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea perhaps have developed a better sense of data utilisation, which will be useful in the ongoing crisis. In the Sierra Leone, real time data was crucial to school reopening decisions as the government used mobile phones to get monthly updates and track schools with pressing needs.

In all, one major threat to Africa is a susceptibility to externally-imposed agenda.

Covid-19 challenges the narrative that infectious diseases come from Africa to the West, and not the other way round. Given that many Western countries are relatively inexperienced in handling public health crises of this magnitude, this is the time for Africa to look inwards and shape a response that prioritises the needs and interests of its people, while shining the light for the world through strategic innovation.

OYINDAMOLA ADEGBOYE, THOKOZANI CHILENGA-BUTAO, and PRITCHARD MUKUKA are members of the Africa Alpbach Network (AAN).

The Africa Alpbach Network (AAN) was founded by a group of young Africans who attended the Forum and desired to keep the “spirit of Alpbach ” alive through an alumni network that reflects on the needs and aspirations of the African continent.

The AAN seeks to foster continental and international dialogue and cooperation among young Africans and between Africa and Europe. The AAN is contributing to the EFA e.g. by recommending African speakers.

ON TRAVELLING THROUGH TIME AND A FRIENDSHIP WITH THE UNIVERSE A C O N V E R S AT IO N B E T W E E N KA R L M A R KOV IC S A N D L I S A KA LT E N E G G E R

One of the decidedly unique moments at the European Forum Alpbach is this year’s programme segment Artists in Discourse, MEET. The focus is on one artist who invites others whom he or she would like to engage in an — often interdisciplinary — conversation.

This year, the artist in focus is the Austrian actor, director, and screenwriter Karl Markovics. Following the motto “From the Depths”, he will be talking, among others, to the astronomer and astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger at the Forum Alpbach on 26 August. Despite unforeseeable technical issues — such as the mind-boggling destruction of a cable by a squirrel — the two met for a preliminary talk in a video call.

KARL MARKOVICS: I haven’t got a concrete picture in mind of how this year’s MEET is going to go. I have the feeling that it’s not about finding some kind of solution to any current issue, but more about a general assemblage that is existential for science, for art, and for humanity in general. For me, such a crucial topic is reminiscent of a sentence that comes from the Bible, from a Psalm: “From the depths, O Lord, I call to you.” For me and my profession, “From the Depths” is an important theme regardless, but as I have come to notice, there are countless other disciplines that are wrought of the same fabric.

Before we start our conversation, I would like to tell you about the thoughts that went through my head when I heard the title. I wanted to put it in a kind of frictional contrast with the general theme of the European Forum Alpbach, Fundamentals. Because fundamentals are something very idealistic for me — the idea of a firm foundation.

There are civilisational, social and political foundations in which we believe or try to believe. But the bottom line is that in our

34

existence, in science and art, there is always a new foundation under an apparently solid ground. Our whole life consists of several layers. The deeper we dig, the deeper we get.

Apparently, this is also true for cosmology.

When we look at the stars, there is always another galaxy stretching on behind them.

What inconceivable spaces and dimensions we are dealing with here! On the one hand, this is a highly scientific topic and, on the other hand, it is the most natural thing in the world. The very first cultures already had this deep and unwavering connection to the stars. In the beginning it was mostly of a religious nature. But later on, astronomy was certainly one of the cradles of science.

That’s why I’m so glad you’ve agreed to talk to us. Because what you do is a very important and concrete component of what “From the Depths” means to me.

LISA KALTENEGGER: I like this connection too.

For me, “From the Depths” means “from the depths of space”, and therefore also “from the depths of time”. Because when we look into space, we are always looking back in time.

35

There are only a few ways to look back into the past. There are exciting disciplines such as archaeology and geology which give us insights into the past of our planet — but these are limited to the 4.6 billion years that our earth has existed. Cosmology allows us to look back even further than our species and planet. It is breathtaking that we have figured out how to do this!

ON TRAVELLING THROUGH TIME AND A FRIENDSHIP WITH THE UNIVERSE A C O N V E R S AT IO N B E T W E E N KA R L M A R KOV IC S A N D L I S A KA LT E N E G G E R

One of the decidedly unique moments at the European Forum Alpbach is this year’s programme segment Artists in Discourse, MEET. The focus is on one artist who invites others whom he or she would like to engage in an — often interdisciplinary — conversation.

This year, the artist in focus is the Austrian actor, director, and screenwriter Karl Markovics. Following the motto “From the Depths”, he will be talking, among others, to the astronomer and astrophysicist Lisa Kaltenegger at the Forum Alpbach on 26 August. Despite unforeseeable technical issues — such as the mind-boggling destruction of a cable by a squirrel — the two met for a preliminary talk in a video call.

KARL MARKOVICS: I haven’t got a concrete picture in mind of how this year’s MEET is going to go. I have the feeling that it’s not about finding some kind of solution to any current issue, but more about a general assemblage that is existential for science, for art, and for humanity in general. For me, such a crucial topic is reminiscent of a sentence that comes from the Bible, from a Psalm: “From the depths, O Lord, I call to you.” For me and my profession, “From the Depths” is an important theme regardless, but as I have come to notice, there are countless other disciplines that are wrought of the same fabric.

Before we start our conversation, I would like to tell you about the thoughts that went through my head when I heard the title. I wanted to put it in a kind of frictional contrast with the general theme of the European Forum Alpbach, Fundamentals. Because fundamentals are something very idealistic for me — the idea of a firm foundation.

There are civilisational, social and political foundations in which we believe or try to believe. But the bottom line is that in our

34

existence, in science and art, there is always a new foundation under an apparently solid ground. Our whole life consists of several layers. The deeper we dig, the deeper we get.

Apparently, this is also true for cosmology.

When we look at the stars, there is always another galaxy stretching on behind them.

What inconceivable spaces and dimensions we are dealing with here! On the one hand, this is a highly scientific topic and, on the other hand, it is the most natural thing in the world. The very first cultures already had this deep and unwavering connection to the stars. In the beginning it was mostly of a religious nature. But later on, astronomy was certainly one of the cradles of science.

That’s why I’m so glad you’ve agreed to talk to us. Because what you do is a very important and concrete component of what “From the Depths” means to me.

LISA KALTENEGGER: I like this connection too.

For me, “From the Depths” means “from the depths of space”, and therefore also “from the depths of time”. Because when we look into space, we are always looking back in time.

35

There are only a few ways to look back into the past. There are exciting disciplines such as archaeology and geology which give us insights into the past of our planet — but these are limited to the 4.6 billion years that our earth has existed. Cosmology allows us to look back even further than our species and planet. It is breathtaking that we have figured out how to do this!

Whenever we look up at the stars, we can see starlight that was emitted at the time we were born. Or when the pyramids were built, or during other events in history. Sometimes, of course, we need telescopes so that we can see more distant and faint stars. With the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to look back over ten billion years in time. This is, I think, a beautiful embedding of our existence in the depths of space and in the depths of time. Suddenly you understand yourself as a part of the whole universe.

Whenever a lack of hope threatens to overwhelm me because of the events that are happening in our world, there is a ray of hope for me when we put our lives into a cosmic context. We live here on our very normal little planet, which orbits around this very normal star, our sun, and we find out, in a team of many different scientists and new interdisciplinary approaches, how we fit into this vast space. If we succeed in this, then I have the hope that we will be able to solve other problems as well, if only we approach it with enough enthusiasm and curiosity.

KARL MARKOVICS: Interesting that you mentioned problems and solutions just now.

It reminded me of my school days. Whenever I was desperate because I was faced with a possible re-examination in some subject or the repetition of a school year, one thought helped me: In relation to the entire cosmos — what is a problem? How important are things really? Of course it is childish and naive, but nevertheless I believe that everything that happens on earth is always in this cosmic context. You don’t have to see it metaphysically at all. A person who looks at the night sky

and perceives its dimensions can perceive them without knowing that there are galaxies hundreds of millions of light-years away.

Often, you then realise that what seemed to be a big problem may not be pleasant, but in cosmic dimensions it’s a cinch.

Anyway, before our talk, I googled a bit, among other things about black holes. Because black holes are always of interest to cosmological laymen. The big bang and black holes. I’m just like any other amateur in this regard.

You read about a black hole in a galaxy that is 600 million light years away from us. That means the light we’re seeing right now is the light from 600 million years ago. It takes 600 million years for light to travel at a speed of 300,000 kilometers a second to reach us!

That blows my mind. Now, I’m going to tell you about a very naive thought that always nudges me: All things considered, I’ve always found it extremely surprising how young our cosmos is. For me, 14 billion years are relatively young compared to the dimensions that we are talking about here. That number never threw me off balance.

LISA KALTENEGGER: It’s really nice to be able to look at and think about your own life in this much larger context. The thought, “Maybe I don’t have to worry so much” makes sense. Because I am embedded in the whole cosmos. Sometimes a problem may grow over your head and this view of the starry sky can sometimes create air to breathe and to think and hope anew. Our cosmos is huge, endlessly fascinating, and has many secrets that we can still solve. And maybe there are other life forms out there, maybe we’re not the only ones looking out into space. This thought immediately changes my perspective. There are so many other planets out there orbiting other stars, maybe there’s someone out there who’s also wondering if they’re alone in the universe. I like that thought.

KARL MARKOVICS: So, could we say you’re

someone who regards this topic as a “sensation” or in a certain sense as a philosophical experience, rather than exclusively as a scientific one?

LISA KALTENEGGER: Yes, absolutely. For me, knowledge about a thing makes it even more beautiful than before. Like when you look at a painting in a museum and it’s beautiful —

36

but if you know more about the artist, what he or she wanted to show and why there was, for example, the Blue Period, then the picture takes on many more dimensions. It becomes more exciting because you know more about it. For me it’s the same with the star-splattered sky. It is beautiful, but becomes even more exciting when you understand that there are stars being born and planets orbiting around them. That’s our view into the depths or layers of the universe and where you can immerse yourself. You try to experience and expose more and more of these depths. In science and in art, but also in every other area of life, it is the case that if you experience more, understand more, then the connection to it becomes stronger and you become more curious. It’s like with a person you like. The more you know the person, the deeper the interpersonal connection can become.

The exciting thing is, as you go further and further back in time, the universe gets denser and hotter. In this way we learn about the fundamental laws of matter and energy. We can look back in time and see remnants of the Big Bang. We can’t see all the way back to the Big Bang because at that time the universe was so dense and hot that even light couldn’t escape the dense, hot mass. But we can see the universe just after the Big Bang. These findings allow us to understand things that happen in our sun, for example. Such insights into the depths of reality make the whole world more beautiful and exciting for me and give it depth.

KARL MARKOVICS: What was the moment

for you that decided that you wanted to go this way and said, “I want to make friends with the cosmos. I want everything, really everything around me, to be my friend”?

How did that start?

LISA KALTENEGGER: Like every child I was curious. I was also lucky to be encouraged and supported by my family in this beautiful curiosity about the world. The questions of why and how captivated me. When I started studying, I couldn’t decide on a subject at first, because many things were fascinating to me. Then I decided to study five different subjects in the first semester to find out what interested me the most. First of all I went to the main lectures: astronomy with the vastness

exciting. How do we fit into this huge cosmos?

That’s why I studied astronomy and technical physics, the latter with a specialisation in biomedicine. I wanted to know how physics could be used for medical instruments that could measure things like the elasticity of a cell. But even more exciting for me was to find out if there is life in the universe and how the story of our planet itself might continue, which can also be revealed by looking at other earths orbiting other suns.

of space, technical physics with quantum mechanics, also languages, because I like people very much. So I started with Spanish as a translator and of course economics, always interesting, and economics had Japanese as a component and I wanted to learn Japanese.

These were signs that you didn’t understand and then suddenly they made sense. I also studied media studies, because I was fascinated by the idea of finding out how people communicate.

I remember this physics lecture in which a professor said, “If you want to understand what will happen and how, then study physics. If you want to understand why, you must study philosophy.” What’s exciting for me is the connection between the two. Often you don’t see science as being connected with philosophy or the arts. But, to me, both are simply different ways to discover and explore something. That’s one of the basic ideas out there, that maybe with science you can uncover how everything started and how it will continue. At the same time, there are these wonderful concepts, like the Laplace demon, for example, who says, “You never know what will happen later. Because to do that, you would have to be able to measure everything completely accurately and without any inaccuracies at all”, which is impossible according to quantum mechanics. I like that too.

Because if you could measure everything very accurately and know everything, what would happen to free will? But because quantum mechanics shows that we can never measure both place and speed simultaneously with the utmost precision, there is still room for the unknown and space for free will.

KARL MARKOVICS: It’s great that you also have an affinity for language and philosophy. One of my other guests at MEET is the philosopher Christoph Türcke. He has written a very compelling book, “Philosophy of Dreams”. It’s about nothing less than the origin of thinking. In it, he outlines a theory about how the process of conscious thinking, consciousness, the development of imagination, took place. Since we have no sources for pre-linguistic consciousness and this kind of human development, Türcke goes very much into the philosophically speculative, but quite understandable and with an almost mesmerising logic. His idea is that our dreaming is basically the background radiation, the early beginning of becoming conscious. He writes that human consciousness and human imagination initially played almost purely hallucinatory roles. There were no words and concepts for the things and processes yet. In the mind there was no room for them at all, no imagination. That space had to develop little by little. Of course, this also has a lot to do with language, and in this respect we do this networking, which you mentioned earlier on a large scale, and what we talk about on a small scale in Alpbach, as I presumptuously say. There are five or six of us who try to network conceptions, ideas and questions of existence with a handful of people. These things can multiply quite quickly.

LISA KALTENEGGER: In the beginning scientists were not so specialised, they were philosophers, biologists, physicists, etc. They had all the knowledge, so to speak, and in their time there was still the possibility of reading everything there was to read and knowing everything there was to know.

Today, there is so much information that there are now different scientific fields. But in order to address a problem in a really comprehensive way and to find solutions, you have to network the disciplines again.

This interdisciplinary approach is needed, whether it is in our discussions at the Forum Alpbach or in other scientific projects. Finding a planet and discovering life, no single discipline of science can do that alone. So you have to bring them together again. I think we are just finding out that this is not only true for science, but also for many other areas.

For me this exchange of ideas is important to make new ideas, new solutions and new possibilities a reality. The people in the audience come to our conversation with their own thoughts and will draw different conclusions than we do. Everything you have seen and experienced in your life contributes to how you tackle a problem and what you feel is important, what you think needs to be done and how you do it. This means that every person who joins a debate or a scientific or artistic team sees the whole thing from a different angle. And the more perspectives we can have, the more interesting the problem becomes and the easier it is to find a solution.

KARL MARKOVICS: We could go on and on, but I’m afraid. When I’m making a film, I rehearse relatively little, because there’s a saying in film that says, “A good rehearsal is a wasted shot.” So for the sake of interesting thoughts, let’s save the rest for 26 August. I look forward to our next conversation!

KARL MARKOVICS is an award-winning Austrian actor, director and screenwriter.

He is this year’s host of MEET, which will take place on 26 August as part of the European Forum Alpbach. LISA KALTENEGGER is an astronomer and astrophysicist.

She is a professor at Cornell University in the USA and director of the Carl Sagan Institute, which focuses on the search for life in space

I find the cosmos around us beautiful and

37

Whenever we look up at the stars, we can see starlight that was emitted at the time we were born. Or when the pyramids were built, or during other events in history. Sometimes, of course, we need telescopes so that we can see more distant and faint stars. With the Hubble Space Telescope, astronomers have been able to look back over ten billion years in time. This is, I think, a beautiful embedding of our existence in the depths of space and in the depths of time. Suddenly you understand yourself as a part of the whole universe.

Whenever a lack of hope threatens to overwhelm me because of the events that are happening in our world, there is a ray of hope for me when we put our lives into a cosmic context. We live here on our very normal little planet, which orbits around this very normal star, our sun, and we find out, in a team of many different scientists and new interdisciplinary approaches, how we fit into this vast space. If we succeed in this, then I have the hope that we will be able to solve other problems as well, if only we approach it with enough enthusiasm and curiosity.

KARL MARKOVICS: Interesting that you mentioned problems and solutions just now.

It reminded me of my school days. Whenever I was desperate because I was faced with a possible re-examination in some subject or the repetition of a school year, one thought helped me: In relation to the entire cosmos — what is a problem? How important are things really? Of course it is childish and naive, but nevertheless I believe that everything that happens on earth is always in this cosmic context. You don’t have to see it metaphysically at all. A person who looks at the night sky

and perceives its dimensions can perceive them without knowing that there are galaxies hundreds of millions of light-years away.

Often, you then realise that what seemed to be a big problem may not be pleasant, but in cosmic dimensions it’s a cinch.

Anyway, before our talk, I googled a bit, among other things about black holes. Because black holes are always of interest to cosmological laymen. The big bang and black holes. I’m just like any other amateur in this regard.

You read about a black hole in a galaxy that is 600 million light years away from us. That means the light we’re seeing right now is the light from 600 million years ago. It takes 600 million years for light to travel at a speed of 300,000 kilometers a second to reach us!

That blows my mind. Now, I’m going to tell you about a very naive thought that always nudges me: All things considered, I’ve always found it extremely surprising how young our cosmos is. For me, 14 billion years are relatively young compared to the dimensions that we are talking about here. That number never threw me off balance.

LISA KALTENEGGER: It’s really nice to be able to look at and think about your own life in this much larger context. The thought, “Maybe I don’t have to worry so much” makes sense. Because I am embedded in the whole cosmos. Sometimes a problem may grow over your head and this view of the starry sky can sometimes create air to breathe and to think and hope anew. Our cosmos is huge, endlessly fascinating, and has many secrets that we can still solve. And maybe there are other life forms out there, maybe we’re not the only ones looking out into space. This thought immediately changes my perspective. There are so many other planets out there orbiting other stars, maybe there’s someone out there who’s also wondering if they’re alone in the universe. I like that thought.

KARL MARKOVICS: So, could we say you’re

someone who regards this topic as a “sensation” or in a certain sense as a philosophical experience, rather than exclusively as a scientific one?

LISA KALTENEGGER: Yes, absolutely. For me, knowledge about a thing makes it even more beautiful than before. Like when you look at a painting in a museum and it’s beautiful —

36

but if you know more about the artist, what he or she wanted to show and why there was, for example, the Blue Period, then the picture takes on many more dimensions. It becomes more exciting because you know more about it. For me it’s the same with the star-splattered sky. It is beautiful, but becomes even more exciting when you understand that there are stars being born and planets orbiting around them. That’s our view into the depths or layers of the universe and where you can immerse yourself. You try to experience and expose more and more of these depths. In science and in art, but also in every other area of life, it is the case that if you experience more, understand more, then the connection to it becomes stronger and you become more curious. It’s like with a person you like. The more you know the person, the deeper the interpersonal connection can become.

The exciting thing is, as you go further and further back in time, the universe gets denser and hotter. In this way we learn about the fundamental laws of matter and energy. We can look back in time and see remnants of the Big Bang. We can’t see all the way back to the Big Bang because at that time the universe was so dense and hot that even light couldn’t escape the dense, hot mass. But we can see the universe just after the Big Bang. These findings allow us to understand things that happen in our sun, for example. Such insights into the depths of reality make the whole world more beautiful and exciting for me and give it depth.

KARL MARKOVICS: What was the moment

for you that decided that you wanted to go this way and said, “I want to make friends with the cosmos. I want everything, really everything around me, to be my friend”?

How did that start?

LISA KALTENEGGER: Like every child I was curious. I was also lucky to be encouraged and supported by my family in this beautiful curiosity about the world. The questions of why and how captivated me. When I started studying, I couldn’t decide on a subject at first, because many things were fascinating to me. Then I decided to study five different subjects in the first semester to find out what interested me the most. First of all I went to the main lectures: astronomy with the vastness

exciting. How do we fit into this huge cosmos?

That’s why I studied astronomy and technical physics, the latter with a specialisation in biomedicine. I wanted to know how physics could be used for medical instruments that could measure things like the elasticity of a cell. But even more exciting for me was to find out if there is life in the universe and how the story of our planet itself might continue, which can also be revealed by looking at other earths orbiting other suns.

of space, technical physics with quantum mechanics, also languages, because I like people very much. So I started with Spanish as a translator and of course economics, always interesting, and economics had Japanese as a component and I wanted to learn Japanese.

These were signs that you didn’t understand and then suddenly they made sense. I also studied media studies, because I was fascinated by the idea of finding out how people communicate.

I remember this physics lecture in which a professor said, “If you want to understand what will happen and how, then study physics. If you want to understand why, you must study philosophy.” What’s exciting for me is the connection between the two. Often you don’t see science as being connected with philosophy or the arts. But, to me, both are simply different ways to discover and explore something. That’s one of the basic ideas out there, that maybe with science you can uncover how everything started and how it will continue. At the same time, there are these wonderful concepts, like the Laplace demon, for example, who says, “You never know what will happen later. Because to do that, you would have to be able to measure everything completely accurately and without any inaccuracies at all”, which is impossible according to quantum mechanics. I like that too.

Because if you could measure everything very accurately and know everything, what would happen to free will? But because quantum mechanics shows that we can never measure both place and speed simultaneously with the utmost precision, there is still room for the unknown and space for free will.

KARL MARKOVICS: It’s great that you also have an affinity for language and philosophy. One of my other guests at MEET is the philosopher Christoph Türcke. He has written a very compelling book, “Philosophy of Dreams”. It’s about nothing less than the origin of thinking. In it, he outlines a theory about how the process of conscious thinking, consciousness, the development of imagination, took place. Since we have no sources for pre-linguistic consciousness and this kind of human development, Türcke goes very much into the philosophically speculative, but quite understandable and with an almost mesmerising logic. His idea is that our dreaming is basically the background radiation, the early beginning of becoming conscious. He writes that human consciousness and human imagination initially played almost purely hallucinatory roles. There were no words and concepts for the things and processes yet. In the mind there was no room for them at all, no imagination. That space had to develop little by little. Of course, this also has a lot to do with language, and in this respect we do this networking, which you mentioned earlier on a large scale, and what we talk about on a small scale in Alpbach, as I presumptuously say. There are five or six of us who try to network conceptions, ideas and questions of existence with a handful of people. These things can multiply quite quickly.

LISA KALTENEGGER: In the beginning scientists were not so specialised, they were philosophers, biologists, physicists, etc. They had all the knowledge, so to speak, and in their time there was still the possibility of reading everything there was to read and knowing everything there was to know.

Today, there is so much information that there are now different scientific fields. But in order to address a problem in a really comprehensive way and to find solutions, you have to network the disciplines again.

This interdisciplinary approach is needed, whether it is in our discussions at the Forum Alpbach or in other scientific projects. Finding a planet and discovering life, no single discipline of science can do that alone. So you have to bring them together again. I think we are just finding out that this is not only true for science, but also for many other areas.

For me this exchange of ideas is important to make new ideas, new solutions and new possibilities a reality. The people in the audience come to our conversation with their own thoughts and will draw different conclusions than we do. Everything you have seen and experienced in your life contributes to how you tackle a problem and what you feel is important, what you think needs to be done and how you do it. This means that every person who joins a debate or a scientific or artistic team sees the whole thing from a different angle. And the more perspectives we can have, the more interesting the problem becomes and the easier it is to find a solution.

KARL MARKOVICS: We could go on and on, but I’m afraid. When I’m making a film, I rehearse relatively little, because there’s a saying in film that says, “A good rehearsal is a wasted shot.” So for the sake of interesting thoughts, let’s save the rest for 26 August. I look forward to our next conversation!

KARL MARKOVICS is an award-winning Austrian actor, director and screenwriter.

He is this year’s host of MEET, which will take place on 26 August as part of the European Forum Alpbach. LISA KALTENEGGER is an astronomer and astrophysicist.

She is a professor at Cornell University in the USA and director of the Carl Sagan Institute, which focuses on the search for life in space

I find the cosmos around us beautiful and

37

RE:THINK ALLIANCES: FORGING UNLIKELY CONNECTIONS FOR DEMOCRACY It is up to you. As blunt as this may sound, it is as easy as that when it comes to strengthening the democratic fundamentals that our communities are built on. The programme leader of the European Forum Alpbach Foundation’s Re:think Alliances reflects on what it takes to introduce real change to democratic decision-making.

A N NA M Á R IA T Ó T H

Over the past year, the European Forum Alpbach has worked on a new initiative that centres around the question of how to build a diverse alliance — including democracy experts, activists, artists, media and PR experts, businesspeople and influencers — to strengthen democracy, open society, and social cohesion in Europe. We have been collecting success stories of local engagement and online activism initiated by determined individuals from all around Europe. Examples from the town of Ostritz in East Germany, to a “love army” built in Sweden, the greatest civil society movement in Slovakia since the fall of the Iron Curtain, as well as a non-partisan political movement in Switzerland have shown that anyone can stand up for democracy both in the digital space and in the analogue public sphere. Moreover, our initiative builds a consciousness for civic engagement as a democratic right and duty. To put it in the

38

words of a participant, who has built up an online platform for sustainable fashion: “I realised that even my job, which is seemingly apolitical, has a social responsibility in building democracy.”

WANTED: UNLIKELY ALLIES One of the goals of Re:think Alliances is to foster unlikely connections for democracy by bringing individuals to the table who are not typically involved in pro-democracy initiatives but carry a civic responsibility in shaping their communities. These “unlikely allies” not only bring new perspectives to the discussion but they also have a significant role to play in reaching out to audiences that the “usual suspects” of democracy promotion like the European Forum Alpbach, academics, journalists and NGOs or philanthropic players cannot reach.

In our opinion it is a matter of civic duty for everyone who believes that the fundamental principles of democracy should guide the ways in which individuals, communities and societies interact to change something.

The most unlikely alliances between people who do not generally meet could generate the best results in a snowball effect. If the European Forum Alpbach starts a discussion about democracy, that discussion will reach a different audience to that of an online influencer with over 200,000 followers. The online influencer might also open up new ways of thinking about the issue and of transmitting the message.

ATTACKS ON DEMOCRACY ARE HERE TO STAY …

One of the motivations behind Re:think Alliances is that there is dire need to stand up publicly for democratic principles today and to be informed about the main forces undermining democracy. Attacks on democracy all over Europe will only get worse in the near future. Extremists and authoritarian forces work with a clear strategy, are well connected across many sectors, have sufficient funding, a compelling narrative as well as efficient and effective strategies of digital communication. These tactics were accelerated

in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, which, as the “mother of all crises” has served as a welcome source to exacerbate existing conspiracy theories. The coronavirus pandemic has brought to the fore many existing societal, political and economic fault lines, ranging from questions around privacy to political disenchantment and rising populistic tendencies. Add to this a fear of globalisation, the loss of jobs and uncertainties linked to megatrends like the digital transformation and the climate crisis and the picture becomes gloomy, to say the least.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. One part of the solution is technology. The algorithms underlying how information spreads online as of now do not necessarily rely on measurable facts, but rather on the emotional interactions they trigger in (fake or real) users in order to generate interactions. So changing the technology could help, but that is easier said than done.

… BUT SO IS PRODEMOCRACY ACTIVISM Another part of the solution is fighting networks with networks. Pro-democracy actors and initiatives are not connected through an overarching network structure like extremists do. Moreover, pro-democracy actors often struggle with creating a compelling narrative.

More often than not, best practices are not shared across regions and borders. Public personalities or grassroots initiatives have to go through the very same struggles ranging from campaigning to funding and how to get organised. A few Europe-wide initiatives like the “European Hub for Civic Engagement” aim at closing this gap and make information sharing and exchange possible.

In a similar vein, Re:think Alliances grows a base of individuals and organisations effectively involved in strengthening democracy and social cohesion and fosters civic engagement amongst all members, particularly the “unlikely allies”. In the long run, their work should be supported by spot-on research by project partners on the socio-political context with the goal of equipping practitioners, activists and broader civil society with actionable insights on how to respond particularly to the challenge of disinformation.

39

THE FUNDAMENTALS: CONNECTING PEOPLE THROUGH DIALOGUE With Re:think Alliances, the European Forum Alpbach brings its key expertise into the discussion: to act as a catalyst for good dialogue, meaningful exchange and lasting connections between people who do not usually meet. After all, democracy is very simple: “Durchs Reden kommen d'Leut zam” — talking brings people together, an Austrian proverb goes. When it comes down to it, democracy is about common sense-making through debating. In fact, people build trust through personal interaction, even if that interaction is conflictual. So, in times when conversations are getting more and more fragmented online and attacks on this fundamental principle of democracy are growing, the Forum’s role is to create networks of trust. In its 75-year anniversary, the Forum can’t but go back to its very roots and bring together all those individuals who want to shape their communities to the better.

ANNAMÁRIA TÓTH is the Project Leader of “Re:think Alliances” at the European Forum Alpbach Foundation. “Re:think Alliances” is an initiative of the European Forum Alpbach Foundation with the kind support of Stiftung Mercator GmbH, Stiftung Mercator Schweiz and the National Endowment for Democracy

GET INVOLVED! Interested? Write us! And join us: throughout the entire European Forum Alpbach 2020, various discussions and workshops will centre around the different facts of strengthening democratic fundamentals.

Based on these discussions, the European Forum Alpbach Foundation will collect and outline ideas for the future of democracy in the context of digitisation and the coronavirus pandemic. Specific sessions will be marked in the official conference programme and a broader online discussion will take place on our partner platform “Policy Kitchen” as of August 2020. Contact: annamaria.toth@alpbach.org

RE:THINK ALLIANCES: FORGING UNLIKELY CONNECTIONS FOR DEMOCRACY It is up to you. As blunt as this may sound, it is as easy as that when it comes to strengthening the democratic fundamentals that our communities are built on. The programme leader of the European Forum Alpbach Foundation’s Re:think Alliances reflects on what it takes to introduce real change to democratic decision-making.

A N NA M Á R IA T Ó T H

Over the past year, the European Forum Alpbach has worked on a new initiative that centres around the question of how to build a diverse alliance — including democracy experts, activists, artists, media and PR experts, businesspeople and influencers — to strengthen democracy, open society, and social cohesion in Europe. We have been collecting success stories of local engagement and online activism initiated by determined individuals from all around Europe. Examples from the town of Ostritz in East Germany, to a “love army” built in Sweden, the greatest civil society movement in Slovakia since the fall of the Iron Curtain, as well as a non-partisan political movement in Switzerland have shown that anyone can stand up for democracy both in the digital space and in the analogue public sphere. Moreover, our initiative builds a consciousness for civic engagement as a democratic right and duty. To put it in the

38

words of a participant, who has built up an online platform for sustainable fashion: “I realised that even my job, which is seemingly apolitical, has a social responsibility in building democracy.”

WANTED: UNLIKELY ALLIES One of the goals of Re:think Alliances is to foster unlikely connections for democracy by bringing individuals to the table who are not typically involved in pro-democracy initiatives but carry a civic responsibility in shaping their communities. These “unlikely allies” not only bring new perspectives to the discussion but they also have a significant role to play in reaching out to audiences that the “usual suspects” of democracy promotion like the European Forum Alpbach, academics, journalists and NGOs or philanthropic players cannot reach.

In our opinion it is a matter of civic duty for everyone who believes that the fundamental principles of democracy should guide the ways in which individuals, communities and societies interact to change something.

The most unlikely alliances between people who do not generally meet could generate the best results in a snowball effect. If the European Forum Alpbach starts a discussion about democracy, that discussion will reach a different audience to that of an online influencer with over 200,000 followers. The online influencer might also open up new ways of thinking about the issue and of transmitting the message.

ATTACKS ON DEMOCRACY ARE HERE TO STAY …

One of the motivations behind Re:think Alliances is that there is dire need to stand up publicly for democratic principles today and to be informed about the main forces undermining democracy. Attacks on democracy all over Europe will only get worse in the near future. Extremists and authoritarian forces work with a clear strategy, are well connected across many sectors, have sufficient funding, a compelling narrative as well as efficient and effective strategies of digital communication. These tactics were accelerated

in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, which, as the “mother of all crises” has served as a welcome source to exacerbate existing conspiracy theories. The coronavirus pandemic has brought to the fore many existing societal, political and economic fault lines, ranging from questions around privacy to political disenchantment and rising populistic tendencies. Add to this a fear of globalisation, the loss of jobs and uncertainties linked to megatrends like the digital transformation and the climate crisis and the picture becomes gloomy, to say the least.

But there is light at the end of the tunnel. One part of the solution is technology. The algorithms underlying how information spreads online as of now do not necessarily rely on measurable facts, but rather on the emotional interactions they trigger in (fake or real) users in order to generate interactions. So changing the technology could help, but that is easier said than done.

… BUT SO IS PRODEMOCRACY ACTIVISM Another part of the solution is fighting networks with networks. Pro-democracy actors and initiatives are not connected through an overarching network structure like extremists do. Moreover, pro-democracy actors often struggle with creating a compelling narrative.

More often than not, best practices are not shared across regions and borders. Public personalities or grassroots initiatives have to go through the very same struggles ranging from campaigning to funding and how to get organised. A few Europe-wide initiatives like the “European Hub for Civic Engagement” aim at closing this gap and make information sharing and exchange possible.

In a similar vein, Re:think Alliances grows a base of individuals and organisations effectively involved in strengthening democracy and social cohesion and fosters civic engagement amongst all members, particularly the “unlikely allies”. In the long run, their work should be supported by spot-on research by project partners on the socio-political context with the goal of equipping practitioners, activists and broader civil society with actionable insights on how to respond particularly to the challenge of disinformation.

39

THE FUNDAMENTALS: CONNECTING PEOPLE THROUGH DIALOGUE With Re:think Alliances, the European Forum Alpbach brings its key expertise into the discussion: to act as a catalyst for good dialogue, meaningful exchange and lasting connections between people who do not usually meet. After all, democracy is very simple: “Durchs Reden kommen d'Leut zam” — talking brings people together, an Austrian proverb goes. When it comes down to it, democracy is about common sense-making through debating. In fact, people build trust through personal interaction, even if that interaction is conflictual. So, in times when conversations are getting more and more fragmented online and attacks on this fundamental principle of democracy are growing, the Forum’s role is to create networks of trust. In its 75-year anniversary, the Forum can’t but go back to its very roots and bring together all those individuals who want to shape their communities to the better.

ANNAMÁRIA TÓTH is the Project Leader of “Re:think Alliances” at the European Forum Alpbach Foundation. “Re:think Alliances” is an initiative of the European Forum Alpbach Foundation with the kind support of Stiftung Mercator GmbH, Stiftung Mercator Schweiz and the National Endowment for Democracy

GET INVOLVED! Interested? Write us! And join us: throughout the entire European Forum Alpbach 2020, various discussions and workshops will centre around the different facts of strengthening democratic fundamentals.

Based on these discussions, the European Forum Alpbach Foundation will collect and outline ideas for the future of democracy in the context of digitisation and the coronavirus pandemic. Specific sessions will be marked in the official conference programme and a broader online discussion will take place on our partner platform “Policy Kitchen” as of August 2020. Contact: annamaria.toth@alpbach.org

THE PATH TO COVID RECOVERY The Urgent Need for the EU Green Deal and a New Approach to Industrial Strategy M A R IA NA M A Z Z U C AT O, G E O R G E D I B B, A N D M A RT HA M C P H E R S O N

Due to the Covid-19 crisis, states and governments have to step up in unprecedented ways to intervene in their economies.

Even before the Covid-19 crisis hit, Europe already had a fragile macroeconomic context, not having recovered to its pre-2008 crisis GDP level until 2014, and by the end of 2019 was still performing worse than most major economic areas. Within the Eurozone, countries continue to have very different levels of competitiveness, often down to the fact they have different levels of investment in key drivers of growth, such as education, Research & Development, and skills.

Unless Europe kickstarts a new action plan that looks at both the rate of growth and its direction, we risk a decade of stagnation for the continent.

The European community is currently planning the details of its so-called “Next

Generation EU” recovery fund proposal, comprising an emergency European Recovery Instrument worth €750 billion raised on financial markets, and a reinforced Multiannual Financial Framework to increase the EU budget to € 1.85 trillion; member states would start repaying from 2028. The continent should take up the missions approach, its renewed industrial strategy, and its worldfirst Green Deal to provide the direction for this recovery proposal, as a vital and pivotal opportunity to reframe economic growth.

They are critically interlinked policies, that come with the potential for new ways of doing capitalism, new routes to economic growth, and a new prioritisation of citizens.

Missions can stimulate innovation in areas as different as vaccines, to online education for the digital divide experienced by students

40

while studying from locked down homes.

Rather than being neglected, hollowed out or overlooked, policy-makers and industry alike should count these strategies as the key stimuli needed to restart and reshape European economies. Covid-19 is the moment which makes mission-oriented, innovation-led economic renewal urgent.

policy, the European Commission decided on 5 mission areas. It simultaneously launched its new European Industrial Strategy in March 2020, which aims to foster a green and digital transition and advance global competitiveness.

There is a call — now more than ever — for mission-oriented industrial policy. This means governments getting engaged not just in fixing the failures of markets, but directly creating or shaping markets — to directly address the world’s most pressing challenges.

Towards the end of 2019, the EU also launched its plan for a European Green Deal (EGD) to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, move towards a circular economy, and restore biodiversity and cut pollution. Ursula von der Leyen recently announced that the EGD will be the “compass” and “motor for the recovery”.

Taking up long-term, mission-oriented, and newly established policies to respond to the current public health crisis sends clear signals that handling the economic crisis and the climate crisis are not mutually exclusive; and that the EU is ready to use this opportunity to reshape the economic pathway of the continent.

The Just Transition Mechanism is a crucial supplement to the EGD and Industrial Strategy,ensuring that the rights of workers, who have lost out hugely in the Covid-19 crisis so far — are prioritised in the “build back better” approach to a carbon-neutral continent. This mechanism and fund, if used correctly, can ensure that new structures are built between workers, employers and organisations, towards a fairer, “stakeholder capitalism”.

Citizens need to be the first consideration in a public health crisis — and they need to

be in the climate crisis too. While transition away from brown industries is important, so are the people currently relying on these industries for their livelihoods. With unemployment in the Eurozone currently at 7.3 %, there are a lot of unemployed people who could be put to work on many of the promises of the EGD — an opportunity to increase economic growth and job security.

A proactive governance approach entails targeted training, infrastructure investments, preferential lending arrangements for new local companies and income maintenance support. In the follow-up report, Governing Missions in the European Union which I wrote together with colleagues at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, we addressed the importance of engaging citizens in the innovation process, both in terms of defining the direction of transformation, but also in implementation and evaluation.1 In the context of the green deal, the “deal” part of “green deal” developed is just as important as the “green” part.

Conditionalities on government assistance also make up part of the “deal”. The European Commission recently agreed that, despite calls from economists, there would not be, a Europe-wide green requirement on the provision of state aid bailouts to industries such as airlines, which have been eager for support since global travel collapsed. This leaves it up to national governments to make their own decisions on conditionalities, leading to inconsistent outcomes; at the same time as the French government put green conditions on Air France — to decrease CO2 emissions in domestic flights by 50 % by 2024; and stop flying domestic routes where there are rail

competitors; Germany’s Lufthansa was bailed out with no green conditionalities. A joinedup investment and bail-out approach would push further — leading to a co-ordinated air travel and rail system; where rail, air and road investment plans act as carbon-friendly complements, rather than competitors. At a time when more pan-European thinking is needed, this feels like a missed opportunity for direction.

European readiness and willingness to transition must not be thrown away in a misguided vision of Covid-19 and climate change as a zero-sum investment game, in which incumbent (brown) systems are invested in because they seem like the most straightforward way to re-start the economy. This would risk locking in decades of innovation and investment into a high-carbon path, because of short-term reactive, rather than long-term strategic, approaches, to the Covid crisis. Yes, action must be taken quickly to avoid the worst depths of this “greater depression” crisis.

But rapid action does not mean short-termist decision making. It means setting in motion the structural pathways of industrial and social change that are critical to making the Green Deal shape the 21st century.

MARIANA MAZZUCATO is a professor for economics of innovation and public value and the director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), which she founded in 2017

This article was adapted from an article first published on the IIPP’s Medium site.

MISSIONS, INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY, AND THE EUROPEAN GREEN DEAL On the back of the report on Mission Oriented Research and Innovation in the European Union, which I wrote in 2018, and which brought a challenge-oriented approach to innovation

“Green Innovation: urgent and important”, a panel discussion with Wilhelm Molterer, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Mariana Mazzucato, Alexandra Föderl-Schmid (Chair), Christian Kern and Gregor Robertson (from left to right).

41

THE PATH TO COVID RECOVERY The Urgent Need for the EU Green Deal and a New Approach to Industrial Strategy M A R IA NA M A Z Z U C AT O, G E O R G E D I B B, A N D M A RT HA M C P H E R S O N

Due to the Covid-19 crisis, states and governments have to step up in unprecedented ways to intervene in their economies.

Even before the Covid-19 crisis hit, Europe already had a fragile macroeconomic context, not having recovered to its pre-2008 crisis GDP level until 2014, and by the end of 2019 was still performing worse than most major economic areas. Within the Eurozone, countries continue to have very different levels of competitiveness, often down to the fact they have different levels of investment in key drivers of growth, such as education, Research & Development, and skills.

Unless Europe kickstarts a new action plan that looks at both the rate of growth and its direction, we risk a decade of stagnation for the continent.

The European community is currently planning the details of its so-called “Next

Generation EU” recovery fund proposal, comprising an emergency European Recovery Instrument worth €750 billion raised on financial markets, and a reinforced Multiannual Financial Framework to increase the EU budget to € 1.85 trillion; member states would start repaying from 2028. The continent should take up the missions approach, its renewed industrial strategy, and its worldfirst Green Deal to provide the direction for this recovery proposal, as a vital and pivotal opportunity to reframe economic growth.

They are critically interlinked policies, that come with the potential for new ways of doing capitalism, new routes to economic growth, and a new prioritisation of citizens.

Missions can stimulate innovation in areas as different as vaccines, to online education for the digital divide experienced by students

40

while studying from locked down homes.

Rather than being neglected, hollowed out or overlooked, policy-makers and industry alike should count these strategies as the key stimuli needed to restart and reshape European economies. Covid-19 is the moment which makes mission-oriented, innovation-led economic renewal urgent.

policy, the European Commission decided on 5 mission areas. It simultaneously launched its new European Industrial Strategy in March 2020, which aims to foster a green and digital transition and advance global competitiveness.

There is a call — now more than ever — for mission-oriented industrial policy. This means governments getting engaged not just in fixing the failures of markets, but directly creating or shaping markets — to directly address the world’s most pressing challenges.

Towards the end of 2019, the EU also launched its plan for a European Green Deal (EGD) to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, move towards a circular economy, and restore biodiversity and cut pollution. Ursula von der Leyen recently announced that the EGD will be the “compass” and “motor for the recovery”.

Taking up long-term, mission-oriented, and newly established policies to respond to the current public health crisis sends clear signals that handling the economic crisis and the climate crisis are not mutually exclusive; and that the EU is ready to use this opportunity to reshape the economic pathway of the continent.

The Just Transition Mechanism is a crucial supplement to the EGD and Industrial Strategy,ensuring that the rights of workers, who have lost out hugely in the Covid-19 crisis so far — are prioritised in the “build back better” approach to a carbon-neutral continent. This mechanism and fund, if used correctly, can ensure that new structures are built between workers, employers and organisations, towards a fairer, “stakeholder capitalism”.

Citizens need to be the first consideration in a public health crisis — and they need to

be in the climate crisis too. While transition away from brown industries is important, so are the people currently relying on these industries for their livelihoods. With unemployment in the Eurozone currently at 7.3 %, there are a lot of unemployed people who could be put to work on many of the promises of the EGD — an opportunity to increase economic growth and job security.

A proactive governance approach entails targeted training, infrastructure investments, preferential lending arrangements for new local companies and income maintenance support. In the follow-up report, Governing Missions in the European Union which I wrote together with colleagues at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose, we addressed the importance of engaging citizens in the innovation process, both in terms of defining the direction of transformation, but also in implementation and evaluation.1 In the context of the green deal, the “deal” part of “green deal” developed is just as important as the “green” part.

Conditionalities on government assistance also make up part of the “deal”. The European Commission recently agreed that, despite calls from economists, there would not be, a Europe-wide green requirement on the provision of state aid bailouts to industries such as airlines, which have been eager for support since global travel collapsed. This leaves it up to national governments to make their own decisions on conditionalities, leading to inconsistent outcomes; at the same time as the French government put green conditions on Air France — to decrease CO2 emissions in domestic flights by 50 % by 2024; and stop flying domestic routes where there are rail

competitors; Germany’s Lufthansa was bailed out with no green conditionalities. A joinedup investment and bail-out approach would push further — leading to a co-ordinated air travel and rail system; where rail, air and road investment plans act as carbon-friendly complements, rather than competitors. At a time when more pan-European thinking is needed, this feels like a missed opportunity for direction.

European readiness and willingness to transition must not be thrown away in a misguided vision of Covid-19 and climate change as a zero-sum investment game, in which incumbent (brown) systems are invested in because they seem like the most straightforward way to re-start the economy. This would risk locking in decades of innovation and investment into a high-carbon path, because of short-term reactive, rather than long-term strategic, approaches, to the Covid crisis. Yes, action must be taken quickly to avoid the worst depths of this “greater depression” crisis.

But rapid action does not mean short-termist decision making. It means setting in motion the structural pathways of industrial and social change that are critical to making the Green Deal shape the 21st century.

MARIANA MAZZUCATO is a professor for economics of innovation and public value and the director of the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), which she founded in 2017

This article was adapted from an article first published on the IIPP’s Medium site.

MISSIONS, INDUSTRIAL STRATEGY, AND THE EUROPEAN GREEN DEAL On the back of the report on Mission Oriented Research and Innovation in the European Union, which I wrote in 2018, and which brought a challenge-oriented approach to innovation

“Green Innovation: urgent and important”, a panel discussion with Wilhelm Molterer, Jeffrey D. Sachs, Mariana Mazzucato, Alexandra Föderl-Schmid (Chair), Christian Kern and Gregor Robertson (from left to right).

41

150 YEARS OF KSV1870 150 YEARS OF INNOVATION 75 YEARS OF EFA 75 YEARS OF DIALOGUE

Die Erfahrung spricht für das Notariat.

Die Zukunft erst recht.

Und die Gegenwart ganz besonders.

Wir leben in unsicheren Zeiten. Für Wirtschaft und Politik ergeben sich ganz neue und enorme Herausforderungen. Europa und auch Österreich müssen weitreichende Entscheidungen treffen.

Mit allen Folgen und Fragen, die sich daraus ergeben können: politisch, wirtschaftlich, steuerlich – und rechtlich.

In dieser Phase bietet sich das österreichische Notariat als verlässlicher, kompetenter Partner an.

Für Wirtschaft und Verbraucher als professioneller, moderner Rechtsdienstleister. Für Politik und Gesetzgeber als Berater und Gesprächspartner, um nachhaltig richtige Entscheidungen zu treffen.

Ob es um Fragestellungen für die persönliche Sicherheit geht. Oder um die Digitalisierung von Rechtsdienstleistungen. Oder um rechtspolitische Weichenstellungen für die Zukunft: Wir sind bereit.

Impressum: ÖGIZIN GmbH, Landesgerichtstraße 20, 1010 Wien.

ZOOM IN

ZOOM OUT “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, but we can’t see you.” *crunching noises* “Ah, I forgot the webcam blocker. Does it work now?”

“Yeah, now everything’s fine.

Okay everyone, let’s start the meeting. Sorry for arriving late, the last call took forever and then my internet even crashed …”

Maybe future historians will find recordings like these and wonder why the hell at the beginning of 2020 humanity got cooped up in their flats and lived from online meeting to online meeting. The Covid-19 crisis hit the Forum Alpbach Network (FAN) like any other major office-based entity with all the questions the lockdown entails: How will the situation develop, especially regarding the European Forum Alpbach 2020? How can we support each other in these times and how are we going to stay organised as a network? Do we maybe even gain something from this special situation in the end, and if yes, what? The reconstruction of a timeline.

The Covid-19 crisis started when we were in the midst of organising the semiannual FAN conference. This time it was Club Alpbach Romania’s turn to host the conference and we were looking forward to an engaging weekend at the beginning of May in the beautiful city of Brasov to discuss this year’s clubs activities at the forum. The FAN board had planned a strategy weekend beforehand for mid-March, but as the news got increasingly loaded Covid-19 content, we saw our prospects of meeting physically dwindle by the hour. “We need to make a decision”, I recall Valerie, currently chairwoman of the FAN board, say in a call in early march. “This is unprecedented, but a physical conference in Romania seems hardly possible.” Everyone agreed, but how to proceed? “But that doesn’t mean that we have to cancel the conference. Let’s take it to the virtual space!”, someone proposed. Even if it seemed odd at first to take the whole conference that usually relied heavily on mingling and personal contacts to the digital world, everyone was committed to make the best out of the situation and to stay organizsed. The conference would not be cancelled, it would be transferred! The following weeks would make everyone in the FAN to professional video-conference-hoppers. Be it the countless update calls with the Forum Alpbach Foundation, the

regular check-ups within the network or the consolidation in the various club boards: Everyone involved took an exceptional effort to coordinate between widespread uncertainty regarding the Forum 2020 and their commitments to scholarship applicants and their sponsors. Even if it was a challenging time that brought along some frustration at various fronts we as a network managed to bring about the first online FAN Spring conference in the history of the Forum.

Over 60 people came together digitally to share news, to brainstorm events that could add to the programme of the European Forum Alpbach 2020 that would be held primarily digitally as well and to socialise and strengthen longstanding friendships between the clubs.

Everyone knew that it would be extra hard to recreate the immersive experience of the forum in the virtual space, but the commitment to carry on and making our favorite platform of critical, transnational discourse possible outweighed the fears of failing. In the end, our network of 32 Alpbach clubs came up with over 140 proposals (!) for discussion events, performances, livestreams and networking opportunities. Even though the seminar week, seen by many as the heart of the Forum, would not take place due to the special circumstances, the clubs showed that they are more than willing to get engaged and shape this year’s Forum.

“What did you say? I didn’t understand the last thing you said?” “ .. chrr .. krk .. new vice-president is now elected .. brt .. brb-#.. ” “Oh, you mean Andreas Treichl?

Interesting, I heeeeeeeard# .. trzss ... he and Werner Wutscher, chrr .. brk will take over from Phillippe Narval, brbr… krch.. will bring more diversity into the EFA. Also, let’s see how we can strengthen brrrzk .. chrr ... the Network and the EFA together wi .. brrt ... krkk .. them further.” “ .. chrr .. brk .. ” “I think the connection is lost.

But we’re finished anyway. Nice job, guys!

We’re ready for EFA 2020.”

JOHANNES STANGL is member of the FAN board and activist at Fridays For Future Austria

43

150 YEARS OF KSV1870 150 YEARS OF INNOVATION 75 YEARS OF EFA 75 YEARS OF DIALOGUE

Die Erfahrung spricht für das Notariat.

Die Zukunft erst recht.

Und die Gegenwart ganz besonders.

Wir leben in unsicheren Zeiten. Für Wirtschaft und Politik ergeben sich ganz neue und enorme Herausforderungen. Europa und auch Österreich müssen weitreichende Entscheidungen treffen.

Mit allen Folgen und Fragen, die sich daraus ergeben können: politisch, wirtschaftlich, steuerlich – und rechtlich.

In dieser Phase bietet sich das österreichische Notariat als verlässlicher, kompetenter Partner an.

Für Wirtschaft und Verbraucher als professioneller, moderner Rechtsdienstleister. Für Politik und Gesetzgeber als Berater und Gesprächspartner, um nachhaltig richtige Entscheidungen zu treffen.

Ob es um Fragestellungen für die persönliche Sicherheit geht. Oder um die Digitalisierung von Rechtsdienstleistungen. Oder um rechtspolitische Weichenstellungen für die Zukunft: Wir sind bereit.

Impressum: ÖGIZIN GmbH, Landesgerichtstraße 20, 1010 Wien.

ZOOM IN

ZOOM OUT “Can you hear me?”

“Yes, but we can’t see you.” *crunching noises* “Ah, I forgot the webcam blocker. Does it work now?”

“Yeah, now everything’s fine.

Okay everyone, let’s start the meeting. Sorry for arriving late, the last call took forever and then my internet even crashed …”

Maybe future historians will find recordings like these and wonder why the hell at the beginning of 2020 humanity got cooped up in their flats and lived from online meeting to online meeting. The Covid-19 crisis hit the Forum Alpbach Network (FAN) like any other major office-based entity with all the questions the lockdown entails: How will the situation develop, especially regarding the European Forum Alpbach 2020? How can we support each other in these times and how are we going to stay organised as a network? Do we maybe even gain something from this special situation in the end, and if yes, what? The reconstruction of a timeline.

The Covid-19 crisis started when we were in the midst of organising the semiannual FAN conference. This time it was Club Alpbach Romania’s turn to host the conference and we were looking forward to an engaging weekend at the beginning of May in the beautiful city of Brasov to discuss this year’s clubs activities at the forum. The FAN board had planned a strategy weekend beforehand for mid-March, but as the news got increasingly loaded Covid-19 content, we saw our prospects of meeting physically dwindle by the hour. “We need to make a decision”, I recall Valerie, currently chairwoman of the FAN board, say in a call in early march. “This is unprecedented, but a physical conference in Romania seems hardly possible.” Everyone agreed, but how to proceed? “But that doesn’t mean that we have to cancel the conference. Let’s take it to the virtual space!”, someone proposed. Even if it seemed odd at first to take the whole conference that usually relied heavily on mingling and personal contacts to the digital world, everyone was committed to make the best out of the situation and to stay organizsed. The conference would not be cancelled, it would be transferred! The following weeks would make everyone in the FAN to professional video-conference-hoppers. Be it the countless update calls with the Forum Alpbach Foundation, the

regular check-ups within the network or the consolidation in the various club boards: Everyone involved took an exceptional effort to coordinate between widespread uncertainty regarding the Forum 2020 and their commitments to scholarship applicants and their sponsors. Even if it was a challenging time that brought along some frustration at various fronts we as a network managed to bring about the first online FAN Spring conference in the history of the Forum.

Over 60 people came together digitally to share news, to brainstorm events that could add to the programme of the European Forum Alpbach 2020 that would be held primarily digitally as well and to socialise and strengthen longstanding friendships between the clubs.

Everyone knew that it would be extra hard to recreate the immersive experience of the forum in the virtual space, but the commitment to carry on and making our favorite platform of critical, transnational discourse possible outweighed the fears of failing. In the end, our network of 32 Alpbach clubs came up with over 140 proposals (!) for discussion events, performances, livestreams and networking opportunities. Even though the seminar week, seen by many as the heart of the Forum, would not take place due to the special circumstances, the clubs showed that they are more than willing to get engaged and shape this year’s Forum.

“What did you say? I didn’t understand the last thing you said?” “ .. chrr .. krk .. new vice-president is now elected .. brt .. brb-#.. ” “Oh, you mean Andreas Treichl?

Interesting, I heeeeeeeard# .. trzss ... he and Werner Wutscher, chrr .. brk will take over from Phillippe Narval, brbr… krch.. will bring more diversity into the EFA. Also, let’s see how we can strengthen brrrzk .. chrr ... the Network and the EFA together wi .. brrt ... krkk .. them further.” “ .. chrr .. brk .. ” “I think the connection is lost.

But we’re finished anyway. Nice job, guys!

We’re ready for EFA 2020.”

JOHANNES STANGL is member of the FAN board and activist at Fridays For Future Austria

43

WHAT MAKES US CARE? WHICH LIVES MATTER MORE?

This was despite getting the best treatment available locally. This story plays out over and over. Before I had (and lost) my own infants …

I worked on the shop floor as a junior doctor, and did my best to take this in my stride. I and others on the shift watched many families rolled up their children who unfortunately passed on in our hands in the familiar KANGA (a type of African print clothing) and walk away with that blank look in their eyes. I can’t do it anymore. I am more comfortable working in the laboratory … I can always restart a malaria parasite culture that “dies” in my hands. Loved ones never come back. I will make vaccines instead. Does Among’in’s life matter?

The coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives in many ways, forever. As of 7 June, more than 6 million people globally had been infected and over 400,000 had sadly lost their lives. And it’s not over yet. New infections continue to occur and while these have peaked and begun to decrease in some countries, the numbers continue to increase in others and may become the new epicentres of the disease.

Life as we knew it came to an abrupt standstill. Little pleasures like sharing a glass of wine with a friend at a bar after a hard day at work became distant memories, rare treats. Appreciation for school teachers is at an all-time high as those with children battle with home-schooling. Long supermarket queues, panic-driven stock-piling and empty shelves scared us. Holidays were cancelled. At the same time, we were losing loved ones. Mothers, sisters, fathers, uncles, aunts, friends, co-workers, nurses, doctors, hospital and frontline staff; people from all walks of life succumbed to Covid-19. In many cases, families could not be present, and loved ones faced their end … alone. And even in death, for many, there was no dignity as the sheer numbers of the deceased overwhelmed funeral service providers.

Our world will not be the same again.

FA I T H O SI E R

I could not end this peace without showing empathy for #BLACK LIVES MATTER. The brutal killing of George Floyd captured on camera in broad daylight. It’s gone “viral” — an expression I use with care during the current pandemic. Why is the world up in arms (protests)? As a black African scientist who has lived outside America all my life, I cannot pretend to begin to understand the depth of the pain many black people in America are experiencing in this historic moment. The global response says to me that this feeling of injustice is shared by black people all over the world. I speak for myself when I say that I see racism against black people in my day-to-day life. I am well-travelled, well-educated, articulate, live in a nice neighbourhood, work internationally ... you name it ... I see it everywhere ... Sometimes it is really subtle ... sometimes it’s blatant. It is REAL. I go shopping in the supermarket, I am trailed by security, you say to me ... Among’in ... it is because black people steal ... here are the statistics ... these are facts ... I say to you ... what puts people like me in the position where our only option is to steal? Let us begin to have the conversations about root causes rather than show force against symptoms. George Floyd’s life mattered.

© June July

THE GLOBAL RESPONSE to the pandemic has been unprecedented. As a scientific researcher with a strong interest in vaccines, I have been overwhelmed at the determination and speed with which researchers all over the world have mobilized to develop not only vaccines, but also diagnostic tests and therapeutic agents. As of 7 June, 2020, a Covid-vaccine tracker reported that scientists were working on 139 vaccines, with 18 already in clinical trials, while 242 drugs were under investigation, with 154 in clinical trials. Although experts predict that only a handful of these will survive the so-called VALLEY OF DEATH in vaccine and drug development, the sheer effort is admirable. The mobilisation of funds for Covid-19 research has also been unprecedented. Data compiled by Devex indicates that between 1 Jan and 31 May, 2020, $ 17.1 trillion has been announced in the fight against Covid-19 through programs, grants, tenders and open opportunities. We are talking trillions: 000, 000, 000, 000, not billions — 000,000,000 and certainly not millions — 000,000! Why does this shock me? Should you be shocked?

As an African female scientist, my mind takes me to a report in Nature I read last year: funding for “Neglected Tropical Diseases” was at an ALL-TIME HIGH at just over $ 3.5 billion in 2017. My favourite disease — well, the one that I am determined to eliminate — is not considered neglected. Along with HIV and tuberculosis, we (malaria) received $ 2.5 billion of the investments that same year. Loads of cash. We should be grateful. And we are. It’s our problem, right?

44

WHAT REALLY MAKES US CARE? As long as it is not my child that has died of malaria, or been unjustly killed in broad daylight, I will finish reading this piece and return to my busy schedule. As long as my holidays are not affected, my income is secure, I will finish reading this piece and think, oh — that is sad.

I will continue with MY life.

I am BLACK. I am Among’in. Our lives matter.

FAITH OSIER is a professor of Malaria Immunology and currently based at the Centre for Infectious Diseases at Heidelberg University Hospital

So, lets REFLECT ON MALARIA. Let’s imagine an African child, called Among’in, was born healthy and strong in a rural village in Teso — The Iteso (or people of Teso) are Nilo hamites whose homeland spans Eastern Uganda and Western Kenya. Among’in’s parents were rural small-scale farmers, making just enough to keep their family going. When Among’in was 10 months old, tragedy struck. Long story short, she contracted malaria. Unfortunately, the disease was severe, and in the space of a week, she was no longer a crawling bubbly infant, beginning to reach to stand. She could no longer sit without support, had unprovoked recurrent convulsions daily, and never strove to stand again, never walked, never talked.

45

WHAT MAKES US CARE? WHICH LIVES MATTER MORE?

This was despite getting the best treatment available locally. This story plays out over and over. Before I had (and lost) my own infants …

I worked on the shop floor as a junior doctor, and did my best to take this in my stride. I and others on the shift watched many families rolled up their children who unfortunately passed on in our hands in the familiar KANGA (a type of African print clothing) and walk away with that blank look in their eyes. I can’t do it anymore. I am more comfortable working in the laboratory … I can always restart a malaria parasite culture that “dies” in my hands. Loved ones never come back. I will make vaccines instead. Does Among’in’s life matter?

The coronavirus pandemic has changed our lives in many ways, forever. As of 7 June, more than 6 million people globally had been infected and over 400,000 had sadly lost their lives. And it’s not over yet. New infections continue to occur and while these have peaked and begun to decrease in some countries, the numbers continue to increase in others and may become the new epicentres of the disease.

Life as we knew it came to an abrupt standstill. Little pleasures like sharing a glass of wine with a friend at a bar after a hard day at work became distant memories, rare treats. Appreciation for school teachers is at an all-time high as those with children battle with home-schooling. Long supermarket queues, panic-driven stock-piling and empty shelves scared us. Holidays were cancelled. At the same time, we were losing loved ones. Mothers, sisters, fathers, uncles, aunts, friends, co-workers, nurses, doctors, hospital and frontline staff; people from all walks of life succumbed to Covid-19. In many cases, families could not be present, and loved ones faced their end … alone. And even in death, for many, there was no dignity as the sheer numbers of the deceased overwhelmed funeral service providers.

Our world will not be the same again.

FA I T H O SI E R

I could not end this peace without showing empathy for #BLACK LIVES MATTER. The brutal killing of George Floyd captured on camera in broad daylight. It’s gone “viral” — an expression I use with care during the current pandemic. Why is the world up in arms (protests)? As a black African scientist who has lived outside America all my life, I cannot pretend to begin to understand the depth of the pain many black people in America are experiencing in this historic moment. The global response says to me that this feeling of injustice is shared by black people all over the world. I speak for myself when I say that I see racism against black people in my day-to-day life. I am well-travelled, well-educated, articulate, live in a nice neighbourhood, work internationally ... you name it ... I see it everywhere ... Sometimes it is really subtle ... sometimes it’s blatant. It is REAL. I go shopping in the supermarket, I am trailed by security, you say to me ... Among’in ... it is because black people steal ... here are the statistics ... these are facts ... I say to you ... what puts people like me in the position where our only option is to steal? Let us begin to have the conversations about root causes rather than show force against symptoms. George Floyd’s life mattered.

© June July

THE GLOBAL RESPONSE to the pandemic has been unprecedented. As a scientific researcher with a strong interest in vaccines, I have been overwhelmed at the determination and speed with which researchers all over the world have mobilized to develop not only vaccines, but also diagnostic tests and therapeutic agents. As of 7 June, 2020, a Covid-vaccine tracker reported that scientists were working on 139 vaccines, with 18 already in clinical trials, while 242 drugs were under investigation, with 154 in clinical trials. Although experts predict that only a handful of these will survive the so-called VALLEY OF DEATH in vaccine and drug development, the sheer effort is admirable. The mobilisation of funds for Covid-19 research has also been unprecedented. Data compiled by Devex indicates that between 1 Jan and 31 May, 2020, $ 17.1 trillion has been announced in the fight against Covid-19 through programs, grants, tenders and open opportunities. We are talking trillions: 000, 000, 000, 000, not billions — 000,000,000 and certainly not millions — 000,000! Why does this shock me? Should you be shocked?

As an African female scientist, my mind takes me to a report in Nature I read last year: funding for “Neglected Tropical Diseases” was at an ALL-TIME HIGH at just over $ 3.5 billion in 2017. My favourite disease — well, the one that I am determined to eliminate — is not considered neglected. Along with HIV and tuberculosis, we (malaria) received $ 2.5 billion of the investments that same year. Loads of cash. We should be grateful. And we are. It’s our problem, right?

44

WHAT REALLY MAKES US CARE? As long as it is not my child that has died of malaria, or been unjustly killed in broad daylight, I will finish reading this piece and return to my busy schedule. As long as my holidays are not affected, my income is secure, I will finish reading this piece and think, oh — that is sad.

I will continue with MY life.

I am BLACK. I am Among’in. Our lives matter.

FAITH OSIER is a professor of Malaria Immunology and currently based at the Centre for Infectious Diseases at Heidelberg University Hospital

So, lets REFLECT ON MALARIA. Let’s imagine an African child, called Among’in, was born healthy and strong in a rural village in Teso — The Iteso (or people of Teso) are Nilo hamites whose homeland spans Eastern Uganda and Western Kenya. Among’in’s parents were rural small-scale farmers, making just enough to keep their family going. When Among’in was 10 months old, tragedy struck. Long story short, she contracted malaria. Unfortunately, the disease was severe, and in the space of a week, she was no longer a crawling bubbly infant, beginning to reach to stand. She could no longer sit without support, had unprovoked recurrent convulsions daily, and never strove to stand again, never walked, never talked.

45

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Blickwinkel ändern.

Haltungsübung für Fortgeschrittene: Legen Sie jeden Tag ein paar Mal den Kopf zur Seite und betrachten Sie die Welt aus einem anderen Blickwinkel.

Das ist gut für den Nacken. Und noch besser für Ihren Kopf.

Der Haltung gewidmet.

Haltungsübung Nr. 16

Blickwinkel ändern.

Haltungsübung für Fortgeschrittene: Legen Sie jeden Tag ein paar Mal den Kopf zur Seite und betrachten Sie die Welt aus einem anderen Blickwinkel.

Das ist gut für den Nacken. Und noch besser für Ihren Kopf.

Der Haltung gewidmet.

THE WORLD IS DOOMED. THE WORLD IS SAVED. So far, this year has been a wild ride. Things that previously seemed impossible happened on a daily basis and turned our world upside down.

The spring of 2020 almost seemed like a page ripped out of a dystopian novel. At this point in time, we do not know whether other dystopias will follow or whether the crisis will inspire us to create or at least pave the way to utopia.

That is why we asked young people connected to the European Forum Alpbach to participate in a small writing and drawing competition. We were searching for the most spectacular, interesting, horrifying, crazy or just fun utopia or dystopia they could think of for our world in 2030.

DYSTOPIA

RIGHT? B Y L AU R A L AU B IC H L E R

Valerie Hengl (Chairwoman of the Forum Alpbach Network), Elisabeth Schack (EFA Head of Arts & Culture) and Howard Williamson (Corresponding Member of the Scientific Advisory Board) thankfully served as a jury and picked the best utopia and the best dystopia for you to read in our Panorama magazine. Additionally, we give you one of the more interesting drawings we received. Unfortunately, it did not win, but the flying whales in the background convinced us to publish it anyway to applaud artist’s humour and courage. You can find some of the other submissions on our Facebook and or Instagram account @forumalpbach.

Today A girl is staring out of her window, she can hear the birds chirping, the sound of the wind rattling the leaves in a nearby tree. It is a warm day and she is looking forward to going out and exploring the world. Her world. As the saying goes, her world is her oyster, she can do anything and everything if she just believes in herself. She will become a writer, delighting the world with her stories and making them reflect, becoming more empathetic towards each other. No, she

49

THE WORLD IS DOOMED. THE WORLD IS SAVED. So far, this year has been a wild ride. Things that previously seemed impossible happened on a daily basis and turned our world upside down.

The spring of 2020 almost seemed like a page ripped out of a dystopian novel. At this point in time, we do not know whether other dystopias will follow or whether the crisis will inspire us to create or at least pave the way to utopia.

That is why we asked young people connected to the European Forum Alpbach to participate in a small writing and drawing competition. We were searching for the most spectacular, interesting, horrifying, crazy or just fun utopia or dystopia they could think of for our world in 2030.

DYSTOPIA

RIGHT? B Y L AU R A L AU B IC H L E R

Valerie Hengl (Chairwoman of the Forum Alpbach Network), Elisabeth Schack (EFA Head of Arts & Culture) and Howard Williamson (Corresponding Member of the Scientific Advisory Board) thankfully served as a jury and picked the best utopia and the best dystopia for you to read in our Panorama magazine. Additionally, we give you one of the more interesting drawings we received. Unfortunately, it did not win, but the flying whales in the background convinced us to publish it anyway to applaud artist’s humour and courage. You can find some of the other submissions on our Facebook and or Instagram account @forumalpbach.

Today A girl is staring out of her window, she can hear the birds chirping, the sound of the wind rattling the leaves in a nearby tree. It is a warm day and she is looking forward to going out and exploring the world. Her world. As the saying goes, her world is her oyster, she can do anything and everything if she just believes in herself. She will become a writer, delighting the world with her stories and making them reflect, becoming more empathetic towards each other. No, she

49

© gettyimages

will become a politician, changing the world for the better, making it greener, establishing peace and equality for everyone. No, she will be a doctor, working for humanity to live out their best lives in complete health. No, she will become a teacher, educating todays youth for a better tomorrow, inspiring thousands of young minds and helping them find their path in life. No, she will be —

UTOPIA

2030

BY JOEL CHRISTOPH

Inspired by nature.

Caring for nature.

Driving change frame by frame.

Welcome to 2030. In establishing Utopia, the first five centuries are always the hardest. We have continued to make progress towards a more inclusive, sustainable and harmonious world. Without getting into too much detail regarding how it functions, let me recap the main changes.

“Sarah, dinner is ready!” The girl jumps to her feet, drooling over the prospect of a nice dinner, steak, medium rare, her favourite.

After dinner she will take her new car out for a ride, just around the neighbourhood. Hopefully she won’t encounter her neighbours, they always look at her in a weird way even though they only own a Turkish restaurant. She would never go on holiday to Turkey. Her next holiday will be to L.A. of course. Maybe she will get discovered, become the next big star in Hollywood. That thought reminds her, she can’t forget to post a new tiktok video after dinner. Or before dinner?

Best one before and one after dinner, she must keep her followers entertained otherwise she will never become a star.

2030

Globally, the shared and circular economy has grown in scale and scope. Many people choose to share items at storage facilities where one can ask for almost anything ever produced or 3D-printed. More people choose to wear the same attire every day and proclaim that the lack of “unessential” possessions frees them to concentrate on pursuing the common good, as well as to make more considered consumption decisions. This reflects an overall rising conscientiousness about the interdependence of one’s choices as a citizen and consumer on the world beyond individual regard.

A woman is staring out of her window, the streets are empty, the smog clouding the sky, dying trees trying desperately to clean the air. Today nobody is allowed outside, an effort of the government to reduce emissions and make the grey world a bit greener. Pf. She rolls her eyes even though nobody can see her. The world is lost already.

They would have had to start caring about this years ago. Decades ago, even. One day a week without cars will not solve climate change destroying the flora and fauna, greedy businessman exploiting workers, producing waste, polluting the earth. She can hear music blasting from the apartment right next to her. It’s her favourite song.

Stupid neighbour, thank god she does not have to see his stupid face in the elevator today. He thinks he is better than her just because he is a doctor. He is delusional if he thinks he can really make a change.

Our world is dying and so are the people in it. She sighs. Where did everything go wrong? Once upon a time she considered being a doctor as well. She even wanted to be a teacher for a second.

Internationally, ⅔ of the world lives in cities, ¼ of the world is African.

All live longer and receive a “data dividend” for their contribution to digital infrastructure. The world’s most valuable company is an online education business founded by a teen after 2020. Human mobility and equality of opportunity has never been more empowering. International organisations have adapted to better reflect the aspirations for representation by all, while a minority in all states participate in global elections that transcend national systems. For each global crisis, governments consult with civil society at all levels. United above all by shared values, a common sense of urgency and the commitment to prevent violence or conflict, the world is becoming more peaceful, just and secure world by each successive generation. Even when conflicts arise, new norms of defence and reparations imply that adversaries are always detained, rather than facing threats to life. All religious views are tolerated, with a flourishing practice of ethics and a vibrant dialogue between faiths and between civilisations.

“Beep - dinner is ready - Beep”

Technologically, 3D printers print hyper-individualised meals, medicines and artwork, with the first successful transplant of a 3D-printed liver. Most highways are autonomous vehicle-only. Each new home has a digester that recycles excess heat, water and waste back into an integrated system producing clean water, electricity and fertilizer. Materials grown from genetically engineered plants have replaced petrochemicals. Global desalination capacity has exploded.

The entire ocean floor is mapped. Some cities harvest 100% of their water supply from the atmosphere. Weather modelling is virtually perfected, drone monitoring systems largely eliminated forest fires and the first hurricane has been stopped by human intervention.

She looks down at her food. How miserable this looks. Vegetables.

How she misses the days when she could eat meat every day. Drive around in her car for hours, admiring the nature outside, birds chirping happily. If the government hadn’t chipped her, she would sneak out today and drive around town, just to see if she would get the same feeling of freedom. She does not care about the restrictions; the world is dying anyways. Stupid chips, restricting her freedom, her free will, even. Why do they care if one person drives around today?

One person does not make a difference. The world would still be the same if she did pursue her dreams of becoming a green politician, her dreams of making the world a better place through literature.

One person can’t change anything, so why should she even try, why should she restrict herself if nobody else does? That would just be stupid, one person can’t change the world.

Overall, we have never been as aware of how far we have yet to go, as a species. The sense of wonder, about life beyond Earth and the life inside our heads, keeps us curious and adamant in our shared pursuit of discoveries, breakthroughs and answers to questions that we have never been able to ask before.

…Right?

50

As dedicated nature filmmakers (‘The Ivory Game’, ‘Sea of Shadows’) we are committed to shine a light on fragile parts of the world, to give a voice to threatened species, and to make a positive impact on our precious planet.

#terramatters www.terramater.com

© gettyimages

will become a politician, changing the world for the better, making it greener, establishing peace and equality for everyone. No, she will be a doctor, working for humanity to live out their best lives in complete health. No, she will become a teacher, educating todays youth for a better tomorrow, inspiring thousands of young minds and helping them find their path in life. No, she will be —

UTOPIA

2030

BY JOEL CHRISTOPH

Inspired by nature.

Caring for nature.

Driving change frame by frame.

Welcome to 2030. In establishing Utopia, the first five centuries are always the hardest. We have continued to make progress towards a more inclusive, sustainable and harmonious world. Without getting into too much detail regarding how it functions, let me recap the main changes.

“Sarah, dinner is ready!” The girl jumps to her feet, drooling over the prospect of a nice dinner, steak, medium rare, her favourite.

After dinner she will take her new car out for a ride, just around the neighbourhood. Hopefully she won’t encounter her neighbours, they always look at her in a weird way even though they only own a Turkish restaurant. She would never go on holiday to Turkey. Her next holiday will be to L.A. of course. Maybe she will get discovered, become the next big star in Hollywood. That thought reminds her, she can’t forget to post a new tiktok video after dinner. Or before dinner?

Best one before and one after dinner, she must keep her followers entertained otherwise she will never become a star.

2030

Globally, the shared and circular economy has grown in scale and scope. Many people choose to share items at storage facilities where one can ask for almost anything ever produced or 3D-printed. More people choose to wear the same attire every day and proclaim that the lack of “unessential” possessions frees them to concentrate on pursuing the common good, as well as to make more considered consumption decisions. This reflects an overall rising conscientiousness about the interdependence of one’s choices as a citizen and consumer on the world beyond individual regard.

A woman is staring out of her window, the streets are empty, the smog clouding the sky, dying trees trying desperately to clean the air. Today nobody is allowed outside, an effort of the government to reduce emissions and make the grey world a bit greener. Pf. She rolls her eyes even though nobody can see her. The world is lost already.

They would have had to start caring about this years ago. Decades ago, even. One day a week without cars will not solve climate change destroying the flora and fauna, greedy businessman exploiting workers, producing waste, polluting the earth. She can hear music blasting from the apartment right next to her. It’s her favourite song.

Stupid neighbour, thank god she does not have to see his stupid face in the elevator today. He thinks he is better than her just because he is a doctor. He is delusional if he thinks he can really make a change.

Our world is dying and so are the people in it. She sighs. Where did everything go wrong? Once upon a time she considered being a doctor as well. She even wanted to be a teacher for a second.

Internationally, ⅔ of the world lives in cities, ¼ of the world is African.

All live longer and receive a “data dividend” for their contribution to digital infrastructure. The world’s most valuable company is an online education business founded by a teen after 2020. Human mobility and equality of opportunity has never been more empowering. International organisations have adapted to better reflect the aspirations for representation by all, while a minority in all states participate in global elections that transcend national systems. For each global crisis, governments consult with civil society at all levels. United above all by shared values, a common sense of urgency and the commitment to prevent violence or conflict, the world is becoming more peaceful, just and secure world by each successive generation. Even when conflicts arise, new norms of defence and reparations imply that adversaries are always detained, rather than facing threats to life. All religious views are tolerated, with a flourishing practice of ethics and a vibrant dialogue between faiths and between civilisations.

“Beep - dinner is ready - Beep”

Technologically, 3D printers print hyper-individualised meals, medicines and artwork, with the first successful transplant of a 3D-printed liver. Most highways are autonomous vehicle-only. Each new home has a digester that recycles excess heat, water and waste back into an integrated system producing clean water, electricity and fertilizer. Materials grown from genetically engineered plants have replaced petrochemicals. Global desalination capacity has exploded.

The entire ocean floor is mapped. Some cities harvest 100% of their water supply from the atmosphere. Weather modelling is virtually perfected, drone monitoring systems largely eliminated forest fires and the first hurricane has been stopped by human intervention.

She looks down at her food. How miserable this looks. Vegetables.

How she misses the days when she could eat meat every day. Drive around in her car for hours, admiring the nature outside, birds chirping happily. If the government hadn’t chipped her, she would sneak out today and drive around town, just to see if she would get the same feeling of freedom. She does not care about the restrictions; the world is dying anyways. Stupid chips, restricting her freedom, her free will, even. Why do they care if one person drives around today?

One person does not make a difference. The world would still be the same if she did pursue her dreams of becoming a green politician, her dreams of making the world a better place through literature.

One person can’t change anything, so why should she even try, why should she restrict herself if nobody else does? That would just be stupid, one person can’t change the world.

Overall, we have never been as aware of how far we have yet to go, as a species. The sense of wonder, about life beyond Earth and the life inside our heads, keeps us curious and adamant in our shared pursuit of discoveries, breakthroughs and answers to questions that we have never been able to ask before.

…Right?

50

As dedicated nature filmmakers (‘The Ivory Game’, ‘Sea of Shadows’) we are committed to shine a light on fragile parts of the world, to give a voice to threatened species, and to make a positive impact on our precious planet.

#terramatters www.terramater.com

A HOME FOR THE INTELLECTUAL ELITE

resistance, and his Innsbruck house, where he lived with the goldsmith Bodo Kampan, the painter Gerhild Diesner, and Paul Flora, served as the center of preparations for the first Summer Seminar. As will be seen, a certain importance is attached to Sackenheim in the initial phase, but he may have been, according to a statement by Flora, “neither the one [resistance fighter] nor the other [architect].”

M O N I KA P L AT Z E R

The Congress Centre, which is home to the European Forum Alpbach every summer, has lived many lives before it became what it is today. On the occasion of the Forum’s 75th year of existence we want to dig into the history of the house with a historic synopsis

by Monika Platzer, head of collections and curator at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W).

A drawn perspective of the auditorium by Ferdinand Kitt

The “Austrian College” was constituted in 1946 and subsequently moved into its premises on Kolingasse in Vienna-Alsergrund. Otto Molden was elected president and Simon Moser assisted him as vice president. The organisation’s declared goal was to “renew the scientific and cultural life of Austria on the basis of personal freedom, universality, and tolerance.” This was important to revitalise the educational system, in particular that of the universities, in the direction of interdisciplinary research across all “ideological, national, and political boundaries.”

Transnational and European cooperation stood at the center of the College idea. In addition to the Vienna branch, communities sprung up in Innsbruck, Graz, Linz, Bolzano, Luxembourg, St. Gallen, Paris, and Zagreb.

The Austrian College acted as a support association for the International Summer Seminar in Alpbach, today’s European Forum Alpbach, and the Research Institute for Contemporary European Problems, which was established through financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s.

The pioneering role of Forum Alpbach in the internationalisation of the country’s intellectual elite is undisputed today.

Little is known about the role of architecture in the programming of the International Summer Seminar in Forum Alpbach’s first decade. Although the topic of architecture was not included in the programme every year, both the frequency and high quality of architectural activities taking place and speakers participating in the seminar from 1947 is astonishing, as is how “unknown” these aspects of the seminar still are today.

This points to the problem that arises in the evaluation of the program booklets; cancellations were often not taken into account when going to print.

Originally named the International Summer Seminar (Internationale Hochschulwochen) of the Austrian College, the annual meeting has taken place every summer since 1945. It was called the European Forum Alpbach from 1949 onward. The three-week programme

Jörg Sackenheim, a German-born architect, belonged to the executive team and was responsible for the artistic-technical matters of the Summer Seminar. Not much is known about him personally. His name is mentioned in connection with the Tyrolean

consisted of lectures, working groups, and discussions, accompanied by a growing program framework over the years, including exhibitions, concerts, theatre, dance, literature, and film events. The congress had four official languages: German, French, English, and Italian.

ARCHITECTURE AT THE EUROPEAN FORUM ALPBACH

Competition design for the Paula-Preradović-House by the architect Ferdinand Kitt

52

53

The launch of the architecture programme occurred at the third meeting in 1947 within the topic “The World View and the Concept of Man” and brought, as Molden called it, “the appearance of the first ‘exile home-comers,’” meaning the economist and sociologist Friedrich A. Hayek and the writer Felix Braun. Josef Frank would have been one of them, had he accepted the invitation. The Italian architect Gio Ponti, who is identified as a co-discussant, appeared next to Frank’s name in the program booklet.

In his lecture in 1947 Sackenheim set the birth of modernism in the twentieth century.

Superficial imitators discredited modern architecture with fashionable details. Sackenheim listed examples of pseudo-classicism and the Heimatstil, among others. As a contemporary counter example, Sackenheim pointed out vehicle-free group housing with sufficient green space between the buildings. He expressed criticism towards the civil-servant architects who had distinguished themselves through conservatism. A new approach for Sackenheim was the New Deal Tennessee Valley Authority Project, initiated in the nineteen-thirties

by Franklin D. Roosevelt, which could be understood, to use today’s terminology, as a successful model of public-private partnership, and could act as a role model for Europe.

At the Fifth International Summer Seminar in 1949, dedicated to the topic “The Limits of Research” the first architecture working group — Problems of Present-Day Construction — was held under the direction of the Swiss CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) member Max Bill and Jörg Sackenheim, complemented by a series of lectures. Sigfried Giedion, in his capacity as CIAM general secretary, gave a lecture called “Relationships between Contemporary Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture”.

Giedion’s lecture was a synopsis of his 1941 book Space, Time and Architecture.

A HOME FOR THE INTELLECTUAL ELITE

resistance, and his Innsbruck house, where he lived with the goldsmith Bodo Kampan, the painter Gerhild Diesner, and Paul Flora, served as the center of preparations for the first Summer Seminar. As will be seen, a certain importance is attached to Sackenheim in the initial phase, but he may have been, according to a statement by Flora, “neither the one [resistance fighter] nor the other [architect].”

M O N I KA P L AT Z E R

The Congress Centre, which is home to the European Forum Alpbach every summer, has lived many lives before it became what it is today. On the occasion of the Forum’s 75th year of existence we want to dig into the history of the house with a historic synopsis

by Monika Platzer, head of collections and curator at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W).

A drawn perspective of the auditorium by Ferdinand Kitt

The “Austrian College” was constituted in 1946 and subsequently moved into its premises on Kolingasse in Vienna-Alsergrund. Otto Molden was elected president and Simon Moser assisted him as vice president. The organisation’s declared goal was to “renew the scientific and cultural life of Austria on the basis of personal freedom, universality, and tolerance.” This was important to revitalise the educational system, in particular that of the universities, in the direction of interdisciplinary research across all “ideological, national, and political boundaries.”

Transnational and European cooperation stood at the center of the College idea. In addition to the Vienna branch, communities sprung up in Innsbruck, Graz, Linz, Bolzano, Luxembourg, St. Gallen, Paris, and Zagreb.

The Austrian College acted as a support association for the International Summer Seminar in Alpbach, today’s European Forum Alpbach, and the Research Institute for Contemporary European Problems, which was established through financial support of the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1950s.

The pioneering role of Forum Alpbach in the internationalisation of the country’s intellectual elite is undisputed today.

Little is known about the role of architecture in the programming of the International Summer Seminar in Forum Alpbach’s first decade. Although the topic of architecture was not included in the programme every year, both the frequency and high quality of architectural activities taking place and speakers participating in the seminar from 1947 is astonishing, as is how “unknown” these aspects of the seminar still are today.

This points to the problem that arises in the evaluation of the program booklets; cancellations were often not taken into account when going to print.

Originally named the International Summer Seminar (Internationale Hochschulwochen) of the Austrian College, the annual meeting has taken place every summer since 1945. It was called the European Forum Alpbach from 1949 onward. The three-week programme

Jörg Sackenheim, a German-born architect, belonged to the executive team and was responsible for the artistic-technical matters of the Summer Seminar. Not much is known about him personally. His name is mentioned in connection with the Tyrolean

consisted of lectures, working groups, and discussions, accompanied by a growing program framework over the years, including exhibitions, concerts, theatre, dance, literature, and film events. The congress had four official languages: German, French, English, and Italian.

ARCHITECTURE AT THE EUROPEAN FORUM ALPBACH

Competition design for the Paula-Preradović-House by the architect Ferdinand Kitt

52

53

The launch of the architecture programme occurred at the third meeting in 1947 within the topic “The World View and the Concept of Man” and brought, as Molden called it, “the appearance of the first ‘exile home-comers,’” meaning the economist and sociologist Friedrich A. Hayek and the writer Felix Braun. Josef Frank would have been one of them, had he accepted the invitation. The Italian architect Gio Ponti, who is identified as a co-discussant, appeared next to Frank’s name in the program booklet.

In his lecture in 1947 Sackenheim set the birth of modernism in the twentieth century.

Superficial imitators discredited modern architecture with fashionable details. Sackenheim listed examples of pseudo-classicism and the Heimatstil, among others. As a contemporary counter example, Sackenheim pointed out vehicle-free group housing with sufficient green space between the buildings. He expressed criticism towards the civil-servant architects who had distinguished themselves through conservatism. A new approach for Sackenheim was the New Deal Tennessee Valley Authority Project, initiated in the nineteen-thirties

by Franklin D. Roosevelt, which could be understood, to use today’s terminology, as a successful model of public-private partnership, and could act as a role model for Europe.

At the Fifth International Summer Seminar in 1949, dedicated to the topic “The Limits of Research” the first architecture working group — Problems of Present-Day Construction — was held under the direction of the Swiss CIAM (Congrès Internationaux d’Architecture Moderne) member Max Bill and Jörg Sackenheim, complemented by a series of lectures. Sigfried Giedion, in his capacity as CIAM general secretary, gave a lecture called “Relationships between Contemporary Architecture, Painting, and Sculpture”.

Giedion’s lecture was a synopsis of his 1941 book Space, Time and Architecture.

Groundbreaking of the new congress building in 1951 by former Federal President of Austria Theodor Körner

In this publication he advocated a dynamic view of modern architecture. Though he incorporated it in the canon of established architectural history, Giedion also revealed relationships with other disciplines. In his lecture in Alpbach, Giedion prefaced his thoughts with the following sentence: “Feeling is more difficult than thinking” — thereby pointing out the intellectualisation of man and addressing the neglect of the emotional level, especially in education. Giedion held the imbalance between feeling and thinking accountable for the alienation of the individual in the face of the new aesthetic means of expression. Regarding his experiences in Alpbach, Giedion reflected critically: “I was in Alpbach this summer, and on this occasion I was able to gain a new look into the isolation that the Austrian student body has come in as a result of a twenty-year interregnum. It will take a lot to resolve the lack of direct contact with today’s art.”

THE PAULA PRERADOVIĆ HOUSE, 1951–1958 Meanwhile Alpbach was a rural village community that did not have sufficient space for the ever-richer program of the Austrian College. Thoughts on how to remedy this situation by building a venue to host the event started in 1946. Four years later, in 1950, a plan was set in motion. A foundation model with headquarters in Luxembourg was envisaged to provide funding, and negotiations with “industrial circles” were reported. The exposé for the potential donors touted the success of the “echo” of Alpbach’s creative potential as the “crystallisation point of all modern intellectual forces of the free continent.” The exposé referred to the “apparently

threatening [political] situation” with regard to American donors, while emphasising the resultant obligation of cooperation between the individual European states.

The economic potential of tourism for the catchment area was estimated at one million schillings; the advertising effectiveness of the worldwide “high-quality propaganda” by sending out thousands of posters was likewise argued. The building sum to be raised is quoted at 550,000 schillings. Federal President Theodor Körner officiated at the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction project in 1951; eight years passed before the structure was completed. A financial statement from 1955 shows that ERP funds (European Recovery Programme) in the order of 900,000 schillings without a repayment requirement, and 490,000 schillings with one, were received.

The intermediate statement made it clear that the building was erected to a large extent with US monies from the Tourism Fund of the Federal Ministry of Trade and Reconstruction. In 1957, a further million schillings from tourism promotion funds was pledged.

After the first funding commitment in 1951, an invited competition was started in October.

Otto Molden invited six architects — Alexander Demmer, Ferdinand Kitt, Josef Hannich, Frohwalt Lechleitner, Thomas Schwarz, and Karl Schwanzer to draw up a space allocation program for the 1,500-square-meter plot according to the following specifications: reception room, lounge and reading room for eighty persons, tea and coffee kitchen, library, music room, lecture room for eighty persons, thirty double rooms, sanitary facilities, and a spacious terrace facing the south. An annex or auxiliary buildings were to be considered in the design.

54

In the competition brief, Molden emphasised that “special attention” should be paid to tying the building into the landscape, yet added that, “as the center of a modern avant-garde intellectual renewal movement, it should, of course, constitute a masterpiece of modern architecture.” Ferdinand Kitt finished ahead of Schwanzer and Hannich with a structure set straight into the landscape with an aluminum-covered pent roof; the building’s wooden façade established a relationship with the alpine surroundings. However, the realised construction differed considerably from the initial design for the building that was known as the Paula Preradović House.

Kitt explained the reasons for the striking changes in a text written in the magazine Der Bau. The restrictive requirements of landscape protection and the falsely interpreted maintenance of tradition, which prevented any kind of “functional construction,” forced Kitt to distance himself from the pent roof and to replace it with a “Tyrolean- style” gable roof. Countless letters and minutes document the disagreements between the authorities, the client, and the architect. Complaints were lodged, among other things, about the slanted outer walls near the large windows, the fact that the roof did not extend out to protect the balconies, and the irregularities and inconsistent structuring of the façades and their vertical cladding.

Kitt implemented a two-story, elongated building which adapted to the slope of the terrain, so that the respective floors were accessible at ground level from the side facing the valley and the side facing the mountain.

On the lower level of the hall wing there was a lounge for about 180 people with an attached music room, which — with the aid of a folding wall — could be transformed

into a concert or theatre venue. Rooms in the sixty-bed dormitory wing were oriented to the south and west. The rooms on the upper level were designed as twin rooms; four-bed rooms were located on the lower level. By folding up the upper beds — arranged, like in a sleeping car, on top of each other — these quadruple rooms could be converted into spacious double bedrooms. All of the rooms were colourful throughout. The lecture halls and lounges could be quickly turned into exhibition rooms with a special contrivance. A concession to the time was the dimensioning of the shower facilities for the approximately 400 participants, in order to allow all those who found accommodation in private quarters a hot shower.

The lengthy process of completion might have been due to the sluggish nature of the financing and the changes in the specifications of requirements for the architect. One of Kitt’s surviving drafts from 1956, which shows an ensemble of several buildings on the steeply sloping terrain, illustrates the ambitions of the Austrian College for Alpbach.

Sloping upward from the Paula Preradović House, Kitt situated a swimming pool and an open-air stage with a grandstand, and placed a closed auditorium for 500 people laterally in the middle. A three-story hotel was available to accommodate the participants.

Three working-group houses offer the space for concentrated work. The architectonic appearance took on regional elements, such as wooden balconies and oriels, which were interpreted by Kitt in a contemporary manner.

The traditional construction method of the openwork block wall, as it was used for drying hay in wooden storehouses, was abstracted on the longitudinal wall of the theatre into a structural framework, a detail that was

absorbed in the realised building by the timbered balcony projections. Nothing on the inside was reminiscent of the regional building traditions; on the contrary, the curved, floating staircase, as well as the exposed parts of the roof construction in the lecture hall, conveyed a weightless elegance and revealed a disposition towards design that lay the structural elements bare. If

55

Kitt’s original design had been realised or the executed construction with its interior had remained intact, the Paula Preradović House would succeed today as a showcase project for contemporary building in the Alps.

Repeatedly adapted by Kitt, the house was demolished in the spring of 1998, and replaced with a new structure by the Innsbruck-based architecture firm Din A4.

Groundbreaking of the new congress building in 1951 by former Federal President of Austria Theodor Körner

In this publication he advocated a dynamic view of modern architecture. Though he incorporated it in the canon of established architectural history, Giedion also revealed relationships with other disciplines. In his lecture in Alpbach, Giedion prefaced his thoughts with the following sentence: “Feeling is more difficult than thinking” — thereby pointing out the intellectualisation of man and addressing the neglect of the emotional level, especially in education. Giedion held the imbalance between feeling and thinking accountable for the alienation of the individual in the face of the new aesthetic means of expression. Regarding his experiences in Alpbach, Giedion reflected critically: “I was in Alpbach this summer, and on this occasion I was able to gain a new look into the isolation that the Austrian student body has come in as a result of a twenty-year interregnum. It will take a lot to resolve the lack of direct contact with today’s art.”

THE PAULA PRERADOVIĆ HOUSE, 1951–1958 Meanwhile Alpbach was a rural village community that did not have sufficient space for the ever-richer program of the Austrian College. Thoughts on how to remedy this situation by building a venue to host the event started in 1946. Four years later, in 1950, a plan was set in motion. A foundation model with headquarters in Luxembourg was envisaged to provide funding, and negotiations with “industrial circles” were reported. The exposé for the potential donors touted the success of the “echo” of Alpbach’s creative potential as the “crystallisation point of all modern intellectual forces of the free continent.” The exposé referred to the “apparently

threatening [political] situation” with regard to American donors, while emphasising the resultant obligation of cooperation between the individual European states.

The economic potential of tourism for the catchment area was estimated at one million schillings; the advertising effectiveness of the worldwide “high-quality propaganda” by sending out thousands of posters was likewise argued. The building sum to be raised is quoted at 550,000 schillings. Federal President Theodor Körner officiated at the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction project in 1951; eight years passed before the structure was completed. A financial statement from 1955 shows that ERP funds (European Recovery Programme) in the order of 900,000 schillings without a repayment requirement, and 490,000 schillings with one, were received.

The intermediate statement made it clear that the building was erected to a large extent with US monies from the Tourism Fund of the Federal Ministry of Trade and Reconstruction. In 1957, a further million schillings from tourism promotion funds was pledged.

After the first funding commitment in 1951, an invited competition was started in October.

Otto Molden invited six architects — Alexander Demmer, Ferdinand Kitt, Josef Hannich, Frohwalt Lechleitner, Thomas Schwarz, and Karl Schwanzer to draw up a space allocation program for the 1,500-square-meter plot according to the following specifications: reception room, lounge and reading room for eighty persons, tea and coffee kitchen, library, music room, lecture room for eighty persons, thirty double rooms, sanitary facilities, and a spacious terrace facing the south. An annex or auxiliary buildings were to be considered in the design.

54

In the competition brief, Molden emphasised that “special attention” should be paid to tying the building into the landscape, yet added that, “as the center of a modern avant-garde intellectual renewal movement, it should, of course, constitute a masterpiece of modern architecture.” Ferdinand Kitt finished ahead of Schwanzer and Hannich with a structure set straight into the landscape with an aluminum-covered pent roof; the building’s wooden façade established a relationship with the alpine surroundings. However, the realised construction differed considerably from the initial design for the building that was known as the Paula Preradović House.

Kitt explained the reasons for the striking changes in a text written in the magazine Der Bau. The restrictive requirements of landscape protection and the falsely interpreted maintenance of tradition, which prevented any kind of “functional construction,” forced Kitt to distance himself from the pent roof and to replace it with a “Tyrolean- style” gable roof. Countless letters and minutes document the disagreements between the authorities, the client, and the architect. Complaints were lodged, among other things, about the slanted outer walls near the large windows, the fact that the roof did not extend out to protect the balconies, and the irregularities and inconsistent structuring of the façades and their vertical cladding.

Kitt implemented a two-story, elongated building which adapted to the slope of the terrain, so that the respective floors were accessible at ground level from the side facing the valley and the side facing the mountain.

On the lower level of the hall wing there was a lounge for about 180 people with an attached music room, which — with the aid of a folding wall — could be transformed

into a concert or theatre venue. Rooms in the sixty-bed dormitory wing were oriented to the south and west. The rooms on the upper level were designed as twin rooms; four-bed rooms were located on the lower level. By folding up the upper beds — arranged, like in a sleeping car, on top of each other — these quadruple rooms could be converted into spacious double bedrooms. All of the rooms were colourful throughout. The lecture halls and lounges could be quickly turned into exhibition rooms with a special contrivance. A concession to the time was the dimensioning of the shower facilities for the approximately 400 participants, in order to allow all those who found accommodation in private quarters a hot shower.

The lengthy process of completion might have been due to the sluggish nature of the financing and the changes in the specifications of requirements for the architect. One of Kitt’s surviving drafts from 1956, which shows an ensemble of several buildings on the steeply sloping terrain, illustrates the ambitions of the Austrian College for Alpbach.

Sloping upward from the Paula Preradović House, Kitt situated a swimming pool and an open-air stage with a grandstand, and placed a closed auditorium for 500 people laterally in the middle. A three-story hotel was available to accommodate the participants.

Three working-group houses offer the space for concentrated work. The architectonic appearance took on regional elements, such as wooden balconies and oriels, which were interpreted by Kitt in a contemporary manner.

The traditional construction method of the openwork block wall, as it was used for drying hay in wooden storehouses, was abstracted on the longitudinal wall of the theatre into a structural framework, a detail that was

absorbed in the realised building by the timbered balcony projections. Nothing on the inside was reminiscent of the regional building traditions; on the contrary, the curved, floating staircase, as well as the exposed parts of the roof construction in the lecture hall, conveyed a weightless elegance and revealed a disposition towards design that lay the structural elements bare. If

55

Kitt’s original design had been realised or the executed construction with its interior had remained intact, the Paula Preradović House would succeed today as a showcase project for contemporary building in the Alps.

Repeatedly adapted by Kitt, the house was demolished in the spring of 1998, and replaced with a new structure by the Innsbruck-based architecture firm Din A4.

RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN PROBLEMS In the 1949 Alpbach program booklet, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) was listed for the first time as one of the sponsors. During the interwar period, the philanthropic RF had already supported various research projects in Europe, but the subsidies were discontinued in 1938. Contact was resumed after the war and experts were sent to Europe to evaluate the situation. Christian Fleck’s investigation into Austrian research facilities in the “eyes of the American visitors” shows the low interest of the civil service in a productive contact with representatives of the RF. The “negative benevolence” of the university administration and the restorative persistence of the university faculty led to cooperation outside of state teaching operations. With the founding of the Research Institute for Contemporary European Problems in 1950, a further point of contact with the Austrian College was established. The association’s conceptual formulation served “the scientific research of intellectual phenomena of the present, especially in the field of literature, science, philosophy, art, and social phenomena related to these areas.” Conversations and a series of lectures entitled “European Intellectual Life” marked the beginning of the institute’s program activities. On 7 February, 1951, a discussion on contemporary architecture, with a focus on the modern residential building, took place on Kolingasse with Oswald Haerdtl, Roland Rainer, and Karl Schwanzer. Another track of the 1951–1952 programme year concentrated on in-depth seminars. Led by Walter Heinrich and Roland Rainer, a seminar on urbanism

The architecture inside and the interior design of the building were strikingly modern and contrasted to the traditional village architecture

A drawn perspective of the entrance area by Ferdinand Kitt

56

that appealed equally to professionals and students was among the six working groups.

Walter Heinrich was an economist, a sociologist, a part of the Spann Circle (Spannkreis) and a member of the Austrofascist paramilitary Home Guard (Heimwehr).

From 1949, he held a full professorship at the University of World Trade in Vienna.

Ties to Austrofascism existed through Simon Moser, who cofounded the Forum Alpbach in 1945. He joined the ruling Austrofascist political organisation the Fatherland Front (Vaterländische Front) in 1934 and became a close associate of the writer Guido Zernatto, the head of the organisation Our Life (Neues Leben), which was responsible for guiding leisure activities, following the example of the leisure program After Work (Dopolavoro) in fascist Italy and the Nazis’ Strength through Joy (Kraft durch Freude). Moser also served as the chief of education and lecturer of the state-organised, mandatory university summer camps, which were introduced in 1936 and provided pre-military training and ideological education. He joined the NSDAP in 1940 and promptly took up teaching at the University of Innsbruck after the war.

THE COLD WAR AS A CASH COW The ideological conflict of the Cold War was skilfully instrumentalised by the representatives of the Austrian College to accrue funds. The project proposal submitted to the Catherwood Foundation for further funding emphasised the communist threat to the intellectual elite, and detailed the specific situation in Vienna: “The end of the war has created a political and geographical

situation in Vienna that is not dissimilar to that of Vienna 300 years ago, at the time of the Ottoman wars. Once again, Vienna has become the decisive point of defence of the Western world against the East, except that today, instead of the Turks, Asian Communism threatens this key position of Europe. On the other hand, as long as the occupation felt by the Austrians with increasing bitterness persists, there is a certain guarantee for the security of today’s established intellectual state. However, since it is not out of the question that the major powers might agree on a treaty resulting in the withdrawal of the occupying powers, a situation would then arise that would create a vacuum in the intellectual and cultural space. […] The lack of engagement with “urgent contemporary problems” at Austrian universities “drives many students into the arms of communist propaganda, which, of course, does not shy away from handling these problems and holds up possible solutions, naturally only those that correspond to the teachings of Marxism.” The institute and the Austrian College — by their own definition, the only politically and denominationally independent institutions — received a renewed grant from the US-American donors for the programme year 1952–1953.

MONIKA PLATZER is head of collections and curator at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W)

This abridged version is based on the text “A Home for the Intellectual Elite: The Paula Preradovic House, 1951–1958”, originally published in the book by Monika Platzer, “ Cold War and Architecture. The Competing Forces that Reshaped Austria after 1945”, published by Park Books in 2019, which accompanied an exhibition with the same title at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W); see: https://www.azw.at/en/event/cold-war-and-architecture/. For quotations and in-depth analysis of the architectural aspect in the programme of the Forum Alpbach throughout the early years, please refer to the original text, which also includes a detailed list of sources: https://past.azw.at/item.php?item_id=221

57

RESEARCH INSTITUTE FOR CONTEMPORARY EUROPEAN PROBLEMS In the 1949 Alpbach program booklet, the Rockefeller Foundation (RF) was listed for the first time as one of the sponsors. During the interwar period, the philanthropic RF had already supported various research projects in Europe, but the subsidies were discontinued in 1938. Contact was resumed after the war and experts were sent to Europe to evaluate the situation. Christian Fleck’s investigation into Austrian research facilities in the “eyes of the American visitors” shows the low interest of the civil service in a productive contact with representatives of the RF. The “negative benevolence” of the university administration and the restorative persistence of the university faculty led to cooperation outside of state teaching operations. With the founding of the Research Institute for Contemporary European Problems in 1950, a further point of contact with the Austrian College was established. The association’s conceptual formulation served “the scientific research of intellectual phenomena of the present, especially in the field of literature, science, philosophy, art, and social phenomena related to these areas.” Conversations and a series of lectures entitled “European Intellectual Life” marked the beginning of the institute’s program activities. On 7 February, 1951, a discussion on contemporary architecture, with a focus on the modern residential building, took place on Kolingasse with Oswald Haerdtl, Roland Rainer, and Karl Schwanzer. Another track of the 1951–1952 programme year concentrated on in-depth seminars. Led by Walter Heinrich and Roland Rainer, a seminar on urbanism

The architecture inside and the interior design of the building were strikingly modern and contrasted to the traditional village architecture

A drawn perspective of the entrance area by Ferdinand Kitt

56

that appealed equally to professionals and students was among the six working groups.

Walter Heinrich was an economist, a sociologist, a part of the Spann Circle (Spannkreis) and a member of the Austrofascist paramilitary Home Guard (Heimwehr).

From 1949, he held a full professorship at the University of World Trade in Vienna.

Ties to Austrofascism existed through Simon Moser, who cofounded the Forum Alpbach in 1945. He joined the ruling Austrofascist political organisation the Fatherland Front (Vaterländische Front) in 1934 and became a close associate of the writer Guido Zernatto, the head of the organisation Our Life (Neues Leben), which was responsible for guiding leisure activities, following the example of the leisure program After Work (Dopolavoro) in fascist Italy and the Nazis’ Strength through Joy (Kraft durch Freude). Moser also served as the chief of education and lecturer of the state-organised, mandatory university summer camps, which were introduced in 1936 and provided pre-military training and ideological education. He joined the NSDAP in 1940 and promptly took up teaching at the University of Innsbruck after the war.

THE COLD WAR AS A CASH COW The ideological conflict of the Cold War was skilfully instrumentalised by the representatives of the Austrian College to accrue funds. The project proposal submitted to the Catherwood Foundation for further funding emphasised the communist threat to the intellectual elite, and detailed the specific situation in Vienna: “The end of the war has created a political and geographical

situation in Vienna that is not dissimilar to that of Vienna 300 years ago, at the time of the Ottoman wars. Once again, Vienna has become the decisive point of defence of the Western world against the East, except that today, instead of the Turks, Asian Communism threatens this key position of Europe. On the other hand, as long as the occupation felt by the Austrians with increasing bitterness persists, there is a certain guarantee for the security of today’s established intellectual state. However, since it is not out of the question that the major powers might agree on a treaty resulting in the withdrawal of the occupying powers, a situation would then arise that would create a vacuum in the intellectual and cultural space. […] The lack of engagement with “urgent contemporary problems” at Austrian universities “drives many students into the arms of communist propaganda, which, of course, does not shy away from handling these problems and holds up possible solutions, naturally only those that correspond to the teachings of Marxism.” The institute and the Austrian College — by their own definition, the only politically and denominationally independent institutions — received a renewed grant from the US-American donors for the programme year 1952–1953.

MONIKA PLATZER is head of collections and curator at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W)

This abridged version is based on the text “A Home for the Intellectual Elite: The Paula Preradovic House, 1951–1958”, originally published in the book by Monika Platzer, “ Cold War and Architecture. The Competing Forces that Reshaped Austria after 1945”, published by Park Books in 2019, which accompanied an exhibition with the same title at the Architekturzentrum Wien (Az W); see: https://www.azw.at/en/event/cold-war-and-architecture/. For quotations and in-depth analysis of the architectural aspect in the programme of the Forum Alpbach throughout the early years, please refer to the original text, which also includes a detailed list of sources: https://past.azw.at/item.php?item_id=221

57

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Looking into the EFA archive is a game of chance.

Sometimes you find what you are looking for, sometimes you don’t, and most of the time you find something else entirely, that is so interesting that you completely forget what you wanted to find in the first place. Also, the archive is most likely haunted by the ghost of Otto Molden. For this issue the EFA team went on a treasure hunt down memory lane. Here is what we found.

50,000 CIGARETTES The catering for the first two years was financed through barter deals. The governor of Tyrol, Karl Gruber, provided 50,000 cigarettes as a special distribution to the Forum from the Tyrolean cigarette factory in Schwaz. These were a popular means of payment in the post-war period. There is a rumour that Fritz Molden drove down to the factory himself to fill up his own car with cigarettes to be then distributed in Alpbach.

“IN ANY CASE, WE ARE ALREADY CELEBRATING 100 YEARS”

Erwin Schrödinger in 1951 taking a cigarette break from a working group.

58

Already in 1951, the Forum invited to its 100year celebration in the Vienna office. After successful first years, the Forum was in high spirits and showed confidence. Also, they were already planning a new conference building for which the groundbreaking ceremony in Alpbach was in the same year. So only 25 years more to go and we can celebrate 100 years of the European Forum Alpbach again.

59

A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE

Looking into the EFA archive is a game of chance.

Sometimes you find what you are looking for, sometimes you don’t, and most of the time you find something else entirely, that is so interesting that you completely forget what you wanted to find in the first place. Also, the archive is most likely haunted by the ghost of Otto Molden. For this issue the EFA team went on a treasure hunt down memory lane. Here is what we found.

50,000 CIGARETTES The catering for the first two years was financed through barter deals. The governor of Tyrol, Karl Gruber, provided 50,000 cigarettes as a special distribution to the Forum from the Tyrolean cigarette factory in Schwaz. These were a popular means of payment in the post-war period. There is a rumour that Fritz Molden drove down to the factory himself to fill up his own car with cigarettes to be then distributed in Alpbach.

“IN ANY CASE, WE ARE ALREADY CELEBRATING 100 YEARS”

Erwin Schrödinger in 1951 taking a cigarette break from a working group.

58

Already in 1951, the Forum invited to its 100year celebration in the Vienna office. After successful first years, the Forum was in high spirits and showed confidence. Also, they were already planning a new conference building for which the groundbreaking ceremony in Alpbach was in the same year. So only 25 years more to go and we can celebrate 100 years of the European Forum Alpbach again.

59

IDEAL DAILY CALORIE INTAKES Several handwritten shopping lists report from very different times. Judging from many notes from the first years of the Forum, catering in Alpbach must have been one of the most complex and nerve-wrecking issues to resolve. With shopping lists for Switzerland and a strict plan of calorie intakes, calculated per participant, it was possible to cater the crowd. As nice as it is to look at these sheets of paper, we are quite relieved that Alpbach hotel catering took over at some point and nobody has to go and buy fish tins, so Franz Fischler doesn’t have to hold his opening keynote with an empty stomach.

PRINT DESIGNS THROUGH DECADES Looking through old programmes and brochures is also visually interesting. Various designs and visual aesthetics can be found in the archives. Here are two special brochures the Forum produced in the early years. Back then, there wasn’t only the “College-Weeks” in Alpbach happening but also other events like the “Winter-Meeting” and “Dialogue-Congresses”.

60

IDEAL DAILY CALORIE INTAKES Several handwritten shopping lists report from very different times. Judging from many notes from the first years of the Forum, catering in Alpbach must have been one of the most complex and nerve-wrecking issues to resolve. With shopping lists for Switzerland and a strict plan of calorie intakes, calculated per participant, it was possible to cater the crowd. As nice as it is to look at these sheets of paper, we are quite relieved that Alpbach hotel catering took over at some point and nobody has to go and buy fish tins, so Franz Fischler doesn’t have to hold his opening keynote with an empty stomach.

PRINT DESIGNS THROUGH DECADES Looking through old programmes and brochures is also visually interesting. Various designs and visual aesthetics can be found in the archives. Here are two special brochures the Forum produced in the early years. Back then, there wasn’t only the “College-Weeks” in Alpbach happening but also other events like the “Winter-Meeting” and “Dialogue-Congresses”.

60

THE SPEAKERS’ LIBRARY

NONA SHEPPHARD FRANZISKA HATZ

Bernardine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other

Arto Paasilinna: A Charming Mass Suicide WSOY

Hamish Hamilton ROBERTA LIMA

Sopa de Wuhan It’s this Finnish black humour that captivated me. As well as the description of the individual characters, the situations you can see yourself in and think — ditto. After all, the book’s ending isn’t as pitch-black as expected, but indeed surprises. Far too often we let the point “where it all doesn’t matter anymore” pass by and go on muddling through without making a decision, even though it actually no longer matters. A very humorous, life-affirming novel.

The issues discussed in this compilation of international authors may have become more visible during the pandemic, but were since long in need to be addressed. I enjoy reading texts in their original language; therefore, I searched for David Harvey and Judith Butler’s texts in English. This pointed me in the direction of my next reading: The Force of Nonviolence, Butler’s latest book.

MAXIMILIAN JÖSCH

MARTIN KAINZ

This is a fabulous book full of life, love, joy and imagination, against a background of struggle. It threads together the diverse life stories of twelve black British women on their journeys through the UK and the last hundred years; they’re each looking for something — a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope! Her writing is vivid and flows effortlessly, and every woman is someone you really want to find out about.

An addictive read!

ASPO (Aislamiento Social Preventivo y Obligatorio)

Stephen Greenblatt: The Swerve.

How the World Became Modern

Noam Chomsky: On Nature and Language

W. W. Norton Company

Cambridge University Press

TERESA DISTELBERGER

Robin DiAngelo: White Fragility Beacon Press

If these were normal times, you would find a table and a shelf full of books in the foyer of the Alpbach Congress Centre.

“The Swerve”, by Stephen Greenblatt, is a fascinating story of how 2,000 years ago, ideas that we consider liberal and modern in our society these days, were already part of humanity, and how they were lost and recovered again. I would have wished to have read this book earlier.

One author who has fascinated me since grad school is Noam Chomsky. As a linguist, Chomsky gives language a mostly undetected depth in “On Nature and Language”. He is more than a thinker; he agonises, questions, reflects, and much more. He draws incredible attention to the subtle differences between words and language and urges caution in dealing with languages, especially among decision-makers.

A must-read and -comprehend!

It’s hard to change something one isn’t aware of. Being raised in an open-minded white middle-class family in Austria it took a long time for me to consider that racism isn’t just “out there” but also subtly wired within myself. Political action for social justice is urgently needed. “White Fragility”

by Robin DiAngelo is for white people who want to educate themselves.

ALEKSANDRA DERRA

Deboleena Roy: Molecular Feminisms.

Biology, Becomings and Life in the Lab Seattle: University of Washington Press 2018. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbtzktk

I N C O O P E R AT IO N W I T H WAG N E R’ S C H E BU C H HA N D LU N G , I N N SB RU C K

Deboleena Roy, a molecular biologist and critical feminist thinker, shows how we can build the complementary knowledge which goes beyond nature/culture division. She asks fundamental questions: Who are we?

Who do we want to be? What is the process of becoming in our complex, complicated world? What can we learn from non-human creatures like bacteria and plants? How to be a scientist and sensitive, critical thinker striving for wellbeing of the whole planet? She wonderfully combines personal, scientific, feminist, philosophical and post-humanistic and postcolonial points of view in a vivid and provocative narrative.

The Alpbach Speakers’ Library, as it is called, is usually curated by the contributors of the Seminar Week, who recommend books which are worth your time. Our favourite independent bookstore, Wagner’sche Buchhandlung in Innsbruck, is our partner for this endeavour. However, since nothing is normal this year, neither Wagner’sche nor the contributors of the Seminar Week can participate on site in Alpbach. Therefore, we are bringing the Speakers’ Library, with books carefully picked by the contributors of next year’s Seminar Week, to you this year. Please be so kind and buy them at your local independent bookstore.

PS: Wagner’sche was named Bookstore of the Year 2020 in January. Congratulations, friends! Well deserved!

62

ALEXANDER GSTREIN

AMANDA CHISHOLM

Norbert Lacher: The New Silk Road – Geopolitics and Power

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Between the World and Me

Lambert Academic Publishing

Spiegel & Grau

This is a phenomenal piece of emotionally charged storytelling that reveals what everyday life is like as a poor black man in the United States. Throughout the book the author grips you; you join him on his own journey on what it is like to inhabit a black body and reconcile a past and present whereby this same body is marked dangerous and therefore killable. Given the current racial violence, this is a must-read book to how we might collectively reconcile violent racist pasts, confront the contemporary and reimagine alternative futures.

China was and partly still is on everyone´s lips. Mainly in connection with the city of Wuhan and Covid-19. However, there is more to be discovered talking about China.

The book gives a broad overview as well as deep insight in a region where the largest economies of our time merge. The Silk Road was, for thousands of years, “the” line of communication of early civilizations. In the 21st century, the “New Silk Road” is back again.

Conflicts of interest are inevitable.

63

THE SPEAKERS’ LIBRARY

NONA SHEPPHARD FRANZISKA HATZ

Bernardine Evaristo: Girl, Woman, Other

Arto Paasilinna: A Charming Mass Suicide WSOY

Hamish Hamilton ROBERTA LIMA

Sopa de Wuhan It’s this Finnish black humour that captivated me. As well as the description of the individual characters, the situations you can see yourself in and think — ditto. After all, the book’s ending isn’t as pitch-black as expected, but indeed surprises. Far too often we let the point “where it all doesn’t matter anymore” pass by and go on muddling through without making a decision, even though it actually no longer matters. A very humorous, life-affirming novel.

The issues discussed in this compilation of international authors may have become more visible during the pandemic, but were since long in need to be addressed. I enjoy reading texts in their original language; therefore, I searched for David Harvey and Judith Butler’s texts in English. This pointed me in the direction of my next reading: The Force of Nonviolence, Butler’s latest book.

MAXIMILIAN JÖSCH

MARTIN KAINZ

This is a fabulous book full of life, love, joy and imagination, against a background of struggle. It threads together the diverse life stories of twelve black British women on their journeys through the UK and the last hundred years; they’re each looking for something — a shared past, an unexpected future, a place to call home, somewhere to fit in, a lover, a missed mother, a lost father, even just a touch of hope! Her writing is vivid and flows effortlessly, and every woman is someone you really want to find out about.

An addictive read!

ASPO (Aislamiento Social Preventivo y Obligatorio)

Stephen Greenblatt: The Swerve.

How the World Became Modern

Noam Chomsky: On Nature and Language

W. W. Norton Company

Cambridge University Press

TERESA DISTELBERGER

Robin DiAngelo: White Fragility Beacon Press

If these were normal times, you would find a table and a shelf full of books in the foyer of the Alpbach Congress Centre.

“The Swerve”, by Stephen Greenblatt, is a fascinating story of how 2,000 years ago, ideas that we consider liberal and modern in our society these days, were already part of humanity, and how they were lost and recovered again. I would have wished to have read this book earlier.

One author who has fascinated me since grad school is Noam Chomsky. As a linguist, Chomsky gives language a mostly undetected depth in “On Nature and Language”. He is more than a thinker; he agonises, questions, reflects, and much more. He draws incredible attention to the subtle differences between words and language and urges caution in dealing with languages, especially among decision-makers.

A must-read and -comprehend!

It’s hard to change something one isn’t aware of. Being raised in an open-minded white middle-class family in Austria it took a long time for me to consider that racism isn’t just “out there” but also subtly wired within myself. Political action for social justice is urgently needed. “White Fragility”

by Robin DiAngelo is for white people who want to educate themselves.

ALEKSANDRA DERRA

Deboleena Roy: Molecular Feminisms.

Biology, Becomings and Life in the Lab Seattle: University of Washington Press 2018. https:// www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctvbtzktk

I N C O O P E R AT IO N W I T H WAG N E R’ S C H E BU C H HA N D LU N G , I N N SB RU C K

Deboleena Roy, a molecular biologist and critical feminist thinker, shows how we can build the complementary knowledge which goes beyond nature/culture division. She asks fundamental questions: Who are we?

Who do we want to be? What is the process of becoming in our complex, complicated world? What can we learn from non-human creatures like bacteria and plants? How to be a scientist and sensitive, critical thinker striving for wellbeing of the whole planet? She wonderfully combines personal, scientific, feminist, philosophical and post-humanistic and postcolonial points of view in a vivid and provocative narrative.

The Alpbach Speakers’ Library, as it is called, is usually curated by the contributors of the Seminar Week, who recommend books which are worth your time. Our favourite independent bookstore, Wagner’sche Buchhandlung in Innsbruck, is our partner for this endeavour. However, since nothing is normal this year, neither Wagner’sche nor the contributors of the Seminar Week can participate on site in Alpbach. Therefore, we are bringing the Speakers’ Library, with books carefully picked by the contributors of next year’s Seminar Week, to you this year. Please be so kind and buy them at your local independent bookstore.

PS: Wagner’sche was named Bookstore of the Year 2020 in January. Congratulations, friends! Well deserved!

62

ALEXANDER GSTREIN

AMANDA CHISHOLM

Norbert Lacher: The New Silk Road – Geopolitics and Power

Ta-Nehisi Coates: Between the World and Me

Lambert Academic Publishing

Spiegel & Grau

This is a phenomenal piece of emotionally charged storytelling that reveals what everyday life is like as a poor black man in the United States. Throughout the book the author grips you; you join him on his own journey on what it is like to inhabit a black body and reconcile a past and present whereby this same body is marked dangerous and therefore killable. Given the current racial violence, this is a must-read book to how we might collectively reconcile violent racist pasts, confront the contemporary and reimagine alternative futures.

China was and partly still is on everyone´s lips. Mainly in connection with the city of Wuhan and Covid-19. However, there is more to be discovered talking about China.

The book gives a broad overview as well as deep insight in a region where the largest economies of our time merge. The Silk Road was, for thousands of years, “the” line of communication of early civilizations. In the 21st century, the “New Silk Road” is back again.

Conflicts of interest are inevitable.

63

FORUM ALPBACH NETWORK

Clubs 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

8

The time spent together at the EFA connects former scholarship holders over the course of many years and across national borders.

34 alumni organisations active in 26 countries are a visible expression of this bond.

28

Initiative Group Alpbach Albania Initiative Group Alpbach Armenia Czech and Slovak Club Alpbach Club Alpbach Belgrade Club Alpbach Brussels Club Alpbach Burgenland Club Alpbach Croatia Club Alpbach Finland Club Alpbach Georgia Club Alpbach Germany Club Alpbach Iraq Initiative Group Alpbach Kosovo Kyiv Initiative Group Alpbach Club Alpbach Liechtenstein Club Alpbach London Club Alpbach Macedonia Club Alpbach Montenegro Club Alpbach Netherlands

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

22

23

18

15

10

5

8

20

18

20 19 3 23 32 33 14 34 29 26 625 10 30 27 7 24 4 17 15 12 16 1

13 21 9 2

19

31

22

2

21

24 14 13

They organise successful scholarship programmes and spread the “Spirit of Alpbach” out into the world. There are also 26 FAN Ambassadors who provide information about the EFA Scholarship Programme and the Forum in their countries.

Through global Hubs, the young help shape the programme of the Forum more than ever this year.

Club Alpbach Niederösterreich Club Alpbach Oberösterreich Initiative Group Alpbach Romania Club Alpbach Russia Club Alpbach Salzburg Initiative Group Alpbach Sarajevo Club Alpbach Senza Confini (Carinthia [A], Slovenia, Italy) Club Alpbach Steiermark Club Alpbach Südtirol Alto Adige Club Alpbach Sweden Club Alpbach Tirol Club Alpbach Trentino Club Alpbach Turkey Club Alpbach Vorarlberg Initiativgruppe Alpbach Wien Club Alpbach Zurich

11

5 12

1 7 11

25 6 16 9

The Forum Alpbach Network (FAN) carries the mission of the Forum and stands up for fostering critical discourse at eye level in Alpbach and beyond. The great voluntary work of generations of FAN members proved crucial to further internationalise and advance the Forum to its current form. Young people from diverse backgrounds remain a constitutional part of the Forum.

Ambassadors

4

3 26

MORE INFORMATION https://forum.alpbach.network

64

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Algeria Azerbaijan Bolivia Brazil China Costa Rica Egypt France Ghana Hungary India Iraq Israel

65

14. Lebanon 15. Montenegro 16. Nigeria 17. Philippines 18. Poland 19. Portugal 20. Russia 21. South Korea 22. Turkey 23. United Kingdom 24. USA 25. Vietnam 26. Zimbabwe

17

FORUM ALPBACH NETWORK

Clubs 1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

18.

8

The time spent together at the EFA connects former scholarship holders over the course of many years and across national borders.

34 alumni organisations active in 26 countries are a visible expression of this bond.

28

Initiative Group Alpbach Albania Initiative Group Alpbach Armenia Czech and Slovak Club Alpbach Club Alpbach Belgrade Club Alpbach Brussels Club Alpbach Burgenland Club Alpbach Croatia Club Alpbach Finland Club Alpbach Georgia Club Alpbach Germany Club Alpbach Iraq Initiative Group Alpbach Kosovo Kyiv Initiative Group Alpbach Club Alpbach Liechtenstein Club Alpbach London Club Alpbach Macedonia Club Alpbach Montenegro Club Alpbach Netherlands

19.

20.

21.

22.

23.

24.

25.

26.

27.

28.

29.

30.

31.

32.

33.

34.

22

23

18

15

10

5

8

20

18

20 19 3 23 32 33 14 34 29 26 625 10 30 27 7 24 4 17 15 12 16 1

13 21 9 2

19

31

22

2

21

24 14 13

They organise successful scholarship programmes and spread the “Spirit of Alpbach” out into the world. There are also 26 FAN Ambassadors who provide information about the EFA Scholarship Programme and the Forum in their countries.

Through global Hubs, the young help shape the programme of the Forum more than ever this year.

Club Alpbach Niederösterreich Club Alpbach Oberösterreich Initiative Group Alpbach Romania Club Alpbach Russia Club Alpbach Salzburg Initiative Group Alpbach Sarajevo Club Alpbach Senza Confini (Carinthia [A], Slovenia, Italy) Club Alpbach Steiermark Club Alpbach Südtirol Alto Adige Club Alpbach Sweden Club Alpbach Tirol Club Alpbach Trentino Club Alpbach Turkey Club Alpbach Vorarlberg Initiativgruppe Alpbach Wien Club Alpbach Zurich

11

5 12

1 7 11

25 6 16 9

The Forum Alpbach Network (FAN) carries the mission of the Forum and stands up for fostering critical discourse at eye level in Alpbach and beyond. The great voluntary work of generations of FAN members proved crucial to further internationalise and advance the Forum to its current form. Young people from diverse backgrounds remain a constitutional part of the Forum.

Ambassadors

4

3 26

MORE INFORMATION https://forum.alpbach.network

64

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

8.

9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

Algeria Azerbaijan Bolivia Brazil China Costa Rica Egypt France Ghana Hungary India Iraq Israel

65

14. Lebanon 15. Montenegro 16. Nigeria 17. Philippines 18. Poland 19. Portugal 20. Russia 21. South Korea 22. Turkey 23. United Kingdom 24. USA 25. Vietnam 26. Zimbabwe

17

T H E N O N - P R O F I T A S S O C IAT IO N A N D T H E N O N - P R O F I T F O U N DAT IO N U N D E R P R I VAT E L AW

Council

EUROPEAN FORUM ALPBACH

Peter C. Aichelburg, Martin Bernhofer, Jürgen Busch, Verena Ehold, Friedrich Gleissner, Erich Gornik, Ivo Greiter, Wolfgang Habermayer, Michael Haider, Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger, Günter Hillebrand, Herwig Hösele, Michael Ikrath, Beatrix Karl, Wolfgang Knoll, Georg Kopetz, Kathryn List, Johann Luif, Ulrike Lunacek, Christian Macek, Bernhard Marckhgott, Thomas Mayr-Harting, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Patricia Mussi-Mailer, Dieter Natlacen, Ewald Nowotny, Johannes Ortner, Klaus Poier, Filip Radunovic, Reingard Rauch, Wolfgang Renner, Verena Ringler, Walter Rothensteiner, Sabine Schindler, Peter M. Schmidhuber, Christoph Schneider, Rainer Schrems, Matthias Strolz, Alexandra Terzic-Auer

Scientific Advisory Board

The first European Forum Alpbach took place in 1945 as the “International College Weeks”.

Founded in 1948 as a non-profit association based in Vienna, it acts independently of any ideology, religion or political party. The association only functions thanks to the vast number of people who, with the exception of the organisation team, all give their time voluntarily to the Forum Alpbach. They have contributed to making the European Forum Alpbach one of the most important interdisciplinary dialogue platforms in Europe for science, politics, economics and culture today.

FRANZ FISCHLER

Brigitte Bach, Matthias Beck, Anna Durnová, Martin H. Gerzabek, Markus Hengstschläger, Barbara Horejs, Maximilian Jösch, Sylvia Knapp, Martin Kocher, Stefanie Lindstaedt, Katja Mayer, Josef Mitterer, Hanns-Christoph Nägerl, Manfred Nowak, Elisabeth Oberzaucher, Daniela Pollak, Barbara Prainsack, Peter Purgathofer, Margit Schratzenstaller-Altzinger, Sarah Spiekermann-Hoff, Saskia Stachowitsch, Alma Steger, Harald Stelzer, Kristina Stöckl, Ulrike Tappeiner, Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein, Miriam Unterlass, Michael Wagner, Andreas Wimmer, Rudolf Zechner

Corresponding Members of the Scientific Advisory Board Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Nadia Al-Bagdadi, Petar Bojanić, Johann Frank, Irene Giner-Reichl, Maja Göpel, Hermann Hauser, Michael Ignatieff, Sabine Junginger, Hedwig Josefine Kaiser, Lisa Kaltenegger, Peter G. Kirchschläger, Wilhelm Krull, Dominik Markl, Thomas Mayr-Harting, Gero Miesenböck, Jürgen Mlynek, Berthold Molden, Friedrich B. Prinz, Michael Reiterer, Dirk Rupnow, Anya Schiffrin, Tobias Schumacher, Nona Shepphard, Otmar D. Wiestler, Howard Williamson, Ruth Wodak

International Advisory Board Catherine Ashton, Kristalina Georgieva, Eamon Gilmore, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, Jean-Claude Hollerich, Miroslav Lajčák, Pascal Lamy, Thomas Mayr-Harting, Jeffrey Sachs, Margot Wallström, Bruno Stagno-Ugarte, Karel Schwarzenberg

Forum Alpbach Network Board Valerie Hengl (Chairwoman), Nina van der Giessen, Tobias Neugebauer, Daniel Preisinger, Johannes Stangl, Antonius Widmann

Forum Alpbach Network Committee Martin Absenger, Petra Eischer, Theresa Hörmann, Maryna Lakhno, Stefan Rothbart, Nicole Sattler, Kinga Schleicher, Julia Wlasak

Permanent Office Philippe Narval (Secretary General), Sonja Jöchtl (Managing Director Foundation), Charlotte Steenbergen (Chief Operating Officer), Martin Anderl, Marina Bartoletti, Teresa Beer (Intern), Christina Fuchs, Silvia Hanschur (Intern), Johanna Hirzberger, Bettina Hirzinger, Hannah Kickert, Sarah Kiparski, Olexandr Kuzmenko, Christine Maass, Nikolaus Matejka, Benedikt Osl, Bao-Chau Pham (Intern), Elly Püls, Teresa Reiter, Clara Rindler‑Schantl, Magdalena Rostkowska‑Müllner, Elisabeth Schack, Christiane Schwaiger, Floria Springer, Annamária Toth, Sandra Wenzl, Franziska Werkner, Valentin Wiesner (Intern), Andrea Windegger, Katia Wissinger (Intern), Bernadette Zimmermann

Photographers Luiza Puiu, Andrei Pungovschi

Advisory Committees

President

Honorary Presidents Erhard Busek, Heinrich Pfusterschmid‑Hardtenstein

Steering Committee Executive Board, Michaela Fritz, Valerie Hengl (FAN), Tobias Neugebauer (FAN), Shalini Randeria, Manfred Url (Financial Officer), Werner Wutscher

Auditors CASPAR EINEM

SONJA PUNTSCHER-RIEKMANN

Vice President

Vice President

Günther Schrems, Max Kothbauer

Arbitration Board Waldemar Hummer, Michael Neider, Katharina Scherke, Matthias Strolz

Secretary General Philippe Narval

Health Symposium

Tyrol Days

Political Symposium

Michaela Fritz, Michael Heinisch, Alexander Herzog, Hedwig Kaiser, Bernhard Küenburg, Michaela Latzelsberger, Lena Lepuschütz, Philippe Narval, Sigrid Pilz, Sofia Ribeiro, Kerstin Schallaböck, Andreas Sönnichsen, Giulio Superti-Furga, Thomas WocheleThoma, Sabine Wolf, Hedwig Wölfl

Andreas Altmann, Boglarka Fenyvesi-Kiss, Matthias Fink, Franz Fischler, Wolfgang Fleischhacker, Martin Kubat, Simon Lochmann, Tilmann Märk, Mariella Rieder, Fabio Parola, Roland Psenner, Veronica Rungger, Bibimaya Larice, Ulrike Tanzer, Ulrike Tappeiner

Erhard Busek, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Franz Fischler, Franz-Stefan Gady, Maja Göpel, Gerald Knaus, Thomas Mayr-Harting, Katharina Natter, Claudine Nierth, Sonja Puntscher-Riekmann, Shalini Randeria, Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik

Legal Symposium

Economic Symposium

Financial Market Symposium

Sonja Barnreiter, Tamara Ehs, Caspar Einem, Michael Enzinger, Michael Lysander Fremuth, Michael Holoubek, Brigitte Loderbauer, Elisabeth Lovrek, Sophie Martinetz, Dieter Natlacen, Katarzyna Nowicka, Klaus Poier, Neda Savic, Oliver Scheiber, Alexander Somek, Alma Steger, Michael Umfahrer

Silvia Angelo, Gerald Bast, Ulrike Famira-Mühlberger, Gabriel Felbermayr, Nikolaus Griller, Karen Horn, Martin Kocher, Georg Kopetz, Heike Mensi-Klarbach, Philippe Narval, Claus Raidl, Martin R. Stuchtey, Sofie Waltl

Magdalena Biereder, Catherine Cziharz, Sonja Jöchtl, Stefan Klestil, Bernhard Marckhgott, Christian Niedermüller, Jeffrey Owens, Claus Raidl, Natalie Staniewicz, Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, Shermin Voshmgir, Ricardo-José Vybiral

Publisher: European Forum Alpbach Non-Profit Association Franz-Josefs-Kai 13/10, 1010 Vienna, Austria

Photos: Bogdan Baraghin, Christoph Liebentritt, Maria Noisternig, Wolfgang Pfaundler, Sebastian Philipp, Luiza Puiu, Andrei Pungovschi, Andrea Salzmann, Matteo Vegetti, Iryna Yeroshko

Translations and proof-reading: onlinelektorat.at Design: WHY. Studio Production: Gerin Druck GmbH, Wolkersdorf Paper: Lenzing Desistar (Der blaue Engel, Nordic Swan)

Chief Operating Officer of the Association Charlotte Steenbergen

Board of the Non-Profit Foundation Franz Fischler, Ingrid Hamm, Werner Wutscher, Howard Williamson (co-opted)

CLAUS J. RAIDL

ANDREAS TREICHL

Vice President

Vice President

Managing Director of the Foundation Sonja Jöchtl

66

67

T H E N O N - P R O F I T A S S O C IAT IO N A N D T H E N O N - P R O F I T F O U N DAT IO N U N D E R P R I VAT E L AW

Council

EUROPEAN FORUM ALPBACH

Peter C. Aichelburg, Martin Bernhofer, Jürgen Busch, Verena Ehold, Friedrich Gleissner, Erich Gornik, Ivo Greiter, Wolfgang Habermayer, Michael Haider, Edeltraud Hanappi-Egger, Günter Hillebrand, Herwig Hösele, Michael Ikrath, Beatrix Karl, Wolfgang Knoll, Georg Kopetz, Kathryn List, Johann Luif, Ulrike Lunacek, Christian Macek, Bernhard Marckhgott, Thomas Mayr-Harting, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, Patricia Mussi-Mailer, Dieter Natlacen, Ewald Nowotny, Johannes Ortner, Klaus Poier, Filip Radunovic, Reingard Rauch, Wolfgang Renner, Verena Ringler, Walter Rothensteiner, Sabine Schindler, Peter M. Schmidhuber, Christoph Schneider, Rainer Schrems, Matthias Strolz, Alexandra Terzic-Auer

Scientific Advisory Board

The first European Forum Alpbach took place in 1945 as the “International College Weeks”.

Founded in 1948 as a non-profit association based in Vienna, it acts independently of any ideology, religion or political party. The association only functions thanks to the vast number of people who, with the exception of the organisation team, all give their time voluntarily to the Forum Alpbach. They have contributed to making the European Forum Alpbach one of the most important interdisciplinary dialogue platforms in Europe for science, politics, economics and culture today.

FRANZ FISCHLER

Brigitte Bach, Matthias Beck, Anna Durnová, Martin H. Gerzabek, Markus Hengstschläger, Barbara Horejs, Maximilian Jösch, Sylvia Knapp, Martin Kocher, Stefanie Lindstaedt, Katja Mayer, Josef Mitterer, Hanns-Christoph Nägerl, Manfred Nowak, Elisabeth Oberzaucher, Daniela Pollak, Barbara Prainsack, Peter Purgathofer, Margit Schratzenstaller-Altzinger, Sarah Spiekermann-Hoff, Saskia Stachowitsch, Alma Steger, Harald Stelzer, Kristina Stöckl, Ulrike Tappeiner, Felicitas Thun-Hohenstein, Miriam Unterlass, Michael Wagner, Andreas Wimmer, Rudolf Zechner

Corresponding Members of the Scientific Advisory Board Jeremias Adams-Prassl, Nadia Al-Bagdadi, Petar Bojanić, Johann Frank, Irene Giner-Reichl, Maja Göpel, Hermann Hauser, Michael Ignatieff, Sabine Junginger, Hedwig Josefine Kaiser, Lisa Kaltenegger, Peter G. Kirchschläger, Wilhelm Krull, Dominik Markl, Thomas Mayr-Harting, Gero Miesenböck, Jürgen Mlynek, Berthold Molden, Friedrich B. Prinz, Michael Reiterer, Dirk Rupnow, Anya Schiffrin, Tobias Schumacher, Nona Shepphard, Otmar D. Wiestler, Howard Williamson, Ruth Wodak

International Advisory Board Catherine Ashton, Kristalina Georgieva, Eamon Gilmore, Arancha Gonzalez Laya, Jean-Claude Hollerich, Miroslav Lajčák, Pascal Lamy, Thomas Mayr-Harting, Jeffrey Sachs, Margot Wallström, Bruno Stagno-Ugarte, Karel Schwarzenberg

Forum Alpbach Network Board Valerie Hengl (Chairwoman), Nina van der Giessen, Tobias Neugebauer, Daniel Preisinger, Johannes Stangl, Antonius Widmann

Forum Alpbach Network Committee Martin Absenger, Petra Eischer, Theresa Hörmann, Maryna Lakhno, Stefan Rothbart, Nicole Sattler, Kinga Schleicher, Julia Wlasak

Permanent Office Philippe Narval (Secretary General), Sonja Jöchtl (Managing Director Foundation), Charlotte Steenbergen (Chief Operating Officer), Martin Anderl, Marina Bartoletti, Teresa Beer (Intern), Christina Fuchs, Silvia Hanschur (Intern), Johanna Hirzberger, Bettina Hirzinger, Hannah Kickert, Sarah Kiparski, Olexandr Kuzmenko, Christine Maass, Nikolaus Matejka, Benedikt Osl, Bao-Chau Pham (Intern), Elly Püls, Teresa Reiter, Clara Rindler‑Schantl, Magdalena Rostkowska‑Müllner, Elisabeth Schack, Christiane Schwaiger, Floria Springer, Annamária Toth, Sandra Wenzl, Franziska Werkner, Valentin Wiesner (Intern), Andrea Windegger, Katia Wissinger (Intern), Bernadette Zimmermann

Photographers Luiza Puiu, Andrei Pungovschi

Advisory Committees

President

Honorary Presidents Erhard Busek, Heinrich Pfusterschmid‑Hardtenstein

Steering Committee Executive Board, Michaela Fritz, Valerie Hengl (FAN), Tobias Neugebauer (FAN), Shalini Randeria, Manfred Url (Financial Officer), Werner Wutscher

Auditors CASPAR EINEM

SONJA PUNTSCHER-RIEKMANN

Vice President

Vice President

Günther Schrems, Max Kothbauer

Arbitration Board Waldemar Hummer, Michael Neider, Katharina Scherke, Matthias Strolz

Secretary General Philippe Narval

Health Symposium

Tyrol Days

Political Symposium

Michaela Fritz, Michael Heinisch, Alexander Herzog, Hedwig Kaiser, Bernhard Küenburg, Michaela Latzelsberger, Lena Lepuschütz, Philippe Narval, Sigrid Pilz, Sofia Ribeiro, Kerstin Schallaböck, Andreas Sönnichsen, Giulio Superti-Furga, Thomas WocheleThoma, Sabine Wolf, Hedwig Wölfl

Andreas Altmann, Boglarka Fenyvesi-Kiss, Matthias Fink, Franz Fischler, Wolfgang Fleischhacker, Martin Kubat, Simon Lochmann, Tilmann Märk, Mariella Rieder, Fabio Parola, Roland Psenner, Veronica Rungger, Bibimaya Larice, Ulrike Tanzer, Ulrike Tappeiner

Erhard Busek, Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook, Franz Fischler, Franz-Stefan Gady, Maja Göpel, Gerald Knaus, Thomas Mayr-Harting, Katharina Natter, Claudine Nierth, Sonja Puntscher-Riekmann, Shalini Randeria, Susanne Weigelin-Schwiedrzik

Legal Symposium

Economic Symposium

Financial Market Symposium

Sonja Barnreiter, Tamara Ehs, Caspar Einem, Michael Enzinger, Michael Lysander Fremuth, Michael Holoubek, Brigitte Loderbauer, Elisabeth Lovrek, Sophie Martinetz, Dieter Natlacen, Katarzyna Nowicka, Klaus Poier, Neda Savic, Oliver Scheiber, Alexander Somek, Alma Steger, Michael Umfahrer

Silvia Angelo, Gerald Bast, Ulrike Famira-Mühlberger, Gabriel Felbermayr, Nikolaus Griller, Karen Horn, Martin Kocher, Georg Kopetz, Heike Mensi-Klarbach, Philippe Narval, Claus Raidl, Martin R. Stuchtey, Sofie Waltl

Magdalena Biereder, Catherine Cziharz, Sonja Jöchtl, Stefan Klestil, Bernhard Marckhgott, Christian Niedermüller, Jeffrey Owens, Claus Raidl, Natalie Staniewicz, Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, Shermin Voshmgir, Ricardo-José Vybiral

Publisher: European Forum Alpbach Non-Profit Association Franz-Josefs-Kai 13/10, 1010 Vienna, Austria

Photos: Bogdan Baraghin, Christoph Liebentritt, Maria Noisternig, Wolfgang Pfaundler, Sebastian Philipp, Luiza Puiu, Andrei Pungovschi, Andrea Salzmann, Matteo Vegetti, Iryna Yeroshko

Translations and proof-reading: onlinelektorat.at Design: WHY. Studio Production: Gerin Druck GmbH, Wolkersdorf Paper: Lenzing Desistar (Der blaue Engel, Nordic Swan)

Chief Operating Officer of the Association Charlotte Steenbergen

Board of the Non-Profit Foundation Franz Fischler, Ingrid Hamm, Werner Wutscher, Howard Williamson (co-opted)

CLAUS J. RAIDL

ANDREAS TREICHL

Vice President

Vice President

Managing Director of the Foundation Sonja Jöchtl

66

67

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Der Award für Persönlichkeiten und Unternehmen, die Frauen fördern

Nur 4 € pro Monat!

QUALITÄTSJOURNALISMUS FÜR DAS WOCHENENDE Jetzt das Samstagsabo der Wiener Zeitung bestellen!

Wir holen Initiativen und Persönlichkeiten vor den Vorhang, die Frauen im Berufsleben unterstützen.

Vielen Dank für die zahlreichen Einreichungen!

Nun ist die Jury am Zug.

Der Award wird am 22. September in Kooperation mit dem ORF im RadioKulturhaus verliehen.

Anfragen für Kooperationen bitte an: minerva@sheconomy.at

sheconomy.at

MINERVA 2020

Lesen Sie jetzt jeden Samstag die Printausgabe der Wiener Zeitung inklusive Beilagen im Jahresabo um 48 € (4 € pro Monat). Bequemes Zustellservice vor Ihre Türe. Das Abo endet automatisch. abo@wienerzeitung.at wienerzeitung.at/abo +43 1 417 0 427

minerva

proudly presents

Der Award für Persönlichkeiten und Unternehmen, die Frauen fördern

Nur 4 € pro Monat!

QUALITÄTSJOURNALISMUS FÜR DAS WOCHENENDE Jetzt das Samstagsabo der Wiener Zeitung bestellen!

Wir holen Initiativen und Persönlichkeiten vor den Vorhang, die Frauen im Berufsleben unterstützen.

Vielen Dank für die zahlreichen Einreichungen!

Nun ist die Jury am Zug.

Der Award wird am 22. September in Kooperation mit dem ORF im RadioKulturhaus verliehen.

Anfragen für Kooperationen bitte an: minerva@sheconomy.at

sheconomy.at

MINERVA 2020

Lesen Sie jetzt jeden Samstag die Printausgabe der Wiener Zeitung inklusive Beilagen im Jahresabo um 48 € (4 € pro Monat). Bequemes Zustellservice vor Ihre Türe. Das Abo endet automatisch. abo@wienerzeitung.at wienerzeitung.at/abo +43 1 417 0 427

Freiheit

Wo beginnt die Freiheit des Einzelnen, wo gefährdet sie die Gesundheit anderer? Welche Einschränkungen sind medizinisch begründbar, aber mit den Grundrechten unvereinbar?

Warum w ird den Menschen nicht mehr Eigenverant wortung zugetraut?

Und w ie tragen w ir Sorge dafür, dass Gesundheit und Freiheit nicht zu Gegensätzen werden?

Die „Presse“-Redaktion stellt die Fragen, auf die es keine einfachen Ant worten gibt. Damit Sie sich auch in schw ierigen Zeiten auf seriösen Journalismus verlassen können.

ALPBACH:

AUSZEIT IM DORF DER DENKER Vielleicht haben Sie Alpbach bereits als Forumsteilnehmer kennen und lieben gelernt. Aufgrund der außergewöhnlichen Situation in diesem Jahr bieten wir Ihnen die Möglichkeit, Alpbach - das schönste Dorf Österreichs – von einer

„DORF DER DENKER“ TAGE • Ab 3 Übernachtungen inklusive Frühstück

anderen Seite zu erleben.

• Ticket für die EFA Onlinekonferenz vom 23.08. – 03.09.2020

Sie bestimmen in diesem Jahr den Ablauf Ihres Aufenthalts

• Geführte Dorf-der-Denker Tour durch Alpbach

im Alpbachtal. Kombinieren Sie nach Herzenslust genussvolle Wanderungen, Einkehrschwünge auf urigen Hütten und erleben Sie das Europäische Forum Alpbach digital.

Ganz bequem können Sie von Ihrem Lieblingsplatz in Alpbach online an der E-Conference teilnehmen. Ihrem persönlichen Alpbach-Moment steht also nichts mehr im Weg!

• Gutschein für eine Tirol Pur Hüttenjause • Alpbachtal Card inkl. Sommerbergbahnen, Busse, Eintritt zu Museen,… ab € 521,00 pro Person im Doppelzimmer (Hotel****) ab € 290,00 pro Person im Doppelzimmer (Pension) Verlängerung möglich

Info & Buchung: Alpbachtal Tourismus | +43 5337 21200 | info@alpbachtal.at | alpbachtal.at

Freiheit

Wo beginnt die Freiheit des Einzelnen, wo gefährdet sie die Gesundheit anderer? Welche Einschränkungen sind medizinisch begründbar, aber mit den Grundrechten unvereinbar?

Warum w ird den Menschen nicht mehr Eigenverant wortung zugetraut?

Und w ie tragen w ir Sorge dafür, dass Gesundheit und Freiheit nicht zu Gegensätzen werden?

Die „Presse“-Redaktion stellt die Fragen, auf die es keine einfachen Ant worten gibt. Damit Sie sich auch in schw ierigen Zeiten auf seriösen Journalismus verlassen können.

ALPBACH:

AUSZEIT IM DORF DER DENKER Vielleicht haben Sie Alpbach bereits als Forumsteilnehmer kennen und lieben gelernt. Aufgrund der außergewöhnlichen Situation in diesem Jahr bieten wir Ihnen die Möglichkeit, Alpbach - das schönste Dorf Österreichs – von einer

„DORF DER DENKER“ TAGE • Ab 3 Übernachtungen inklusive Frühstück

anderen Seite zu erleben.

• Ticket für die EFA Onlinekonferenz vom 23.08. – 03.09.2020

Sie bestimmen in diesem Jahr den Ablauf Ihres Aufenthalts

• Geführte Dorf-der-Denker Tour durch Alpbach

im Alpbachtal. Kombinieren Sie nach Herzenslust genussvolle Wanderungen, Einkehrschwünge auf urigen Hütten und erleben Sie das Europäische Forum Alpbach digital.

Ganz bequem können Sie von Ihrem Lieblingsplatz in Alpbach online an der E-Conference teilnehmen. Ihrem persönlichen Alpbach-Moment steht also nichts mehr im Weg!

• Gutschein für eine Tirol Pur Hüttenjause • Alpbachtal Card inkl. Sommerbergbahnen, Busse, Eintritt zu Museen,… ab € 521,00 pro Person im Doppelzimmer (Hotel****) ab € 290,00 pro Person im Doppelzimmer (Pension) Verlängerung möglich

Info & Buchung: Alpbachtal Tourismus | +43 5337 21200 | info@alpbachtal.at | alpbachtal.at

1950’s EFA brochure design

BUY YOUR TICKET NOW: 2020.alpbach.org

www.alpbach.org