International Speaker Series: Dr. Volker Wissing, Chairman of the FDP and Vice-Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany
Event Date:
November 4, 2019 – 3:00 PM to November 5, 2019 – 3:59 PM
Location:
SAC A Salon
Volker Wissing is a German lawyer and politician. Since 2011 he is national chairman of the FDP Rhineland-Palatinate, since 2013 member of the presidency of the Federal Party and since May 2016 Rhineland-Palatinate Minister of Economy, Transport, Agriculture and Viticulture and Deputy Prime Minister. After graduation in 1989 at the State Gymnasium Bad Bergzabern graduated Wissing law studies at the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken and at the Albert -Ludwigs- University in Freiburg im Breisgau , which he finished in 1994 with the first state law exam. In 1997 his promotion to Dr. jur. at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster with the thesis “Laying Public Interest in the System of the Recycling and Waste Management Law “. In 1997 he joined as a judge at the district court Zweibrücken in the judicial service of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate. In July 1997, he moved as a prosecutor to Landau district court. He was then from March to December 1999 judge at the District Court Landau in the Palatinate. From 2000 to 2004 Wissing was a personal referent of the Minister of Justice of Rhineland-Palatinate, Herbert Mertin(FDP), seconded. In 2001 he was appointed judge at the district court. On December 27, 2013, Wissing was appointed the new Secretary General of the Senate of Economy International, the international umbrella organization of the Senate of the Economy. After leaving the German Federal Wissing founded aligned in commercial law, Wirtschaftsstrafrecht, inheritance and Succession firm “Wissing Rechtsanwälte”.
The title of Dr. Wissing’s presentation will be: 30th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall: 1989-The End of History? Learning From History to Succeed in the Future!
Thirty years ago, the wave of democratization experienced its heyday in Europe. The communist dictatorships of Eastern Europe fell apart, thereby lifting the Iron Curtain and finally leading to the fall of the Berlin Wall. The “end of history” had been proclaimed and many people hoped that liberal democracy and the market economy would be implemented once and for all. However, thirty years later, we must now realize that history had not ended back then. Today, Western civilization faces new challenges like China with its very unique systems of government and the economy. Yet, as opposed to this, the calls of globalization’s opponents criticizing the achievements of 1989 are amplifying. What can we do? How can innovations be pushed forward, how can we successfully advance digitization? Dr. Volker Wissing, Minister of Economic Affairs of the Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate, will be talking about the fall of the Berlin Wall, contemporary Germany, and the challenges facing the West nowadays.