The Financial Crisis in Central, Eastern and Southeastern
Europe: What Is to be Done? 26 March 2009, 7 p.m.
Venue: Oesterreichische Kontrollbank, Reiter Saal, Strauchgasse
3, 1010 Vienna
Panelists: Kurt Bayer, Director, European Bank of Reconstruction
and Development (EBRD)
Kurt Bayer formerly worked as Deputy Director General for Economic
Policy and International Financial Institutions at the Austrian
Ministry of Finance; Deputy Governor for Austria in the World
Bank Group, African Development Bank and Inter-American Development
Bank. He also served as Executive Director at the World Bank.
Mr. Bayer was IDA - Deputy for Austria and a Member of the EIB
Board of Directors. Jan Mládek, Chairman, Fontes Rerum (a think tank for
economic, political and social studies)
Jan Mládek has served as vice governor for the Czech Republic
at the International Monetary Fund (Washington, D. C.), he was
First Deputy Minister of Finance and Deputy to the Vice Prime
Minister for Economic Policy of the Czech Republic. From 2005
to 2006 he was Minister of Agriculture. Gábor Obláth, Member of the Fiscal Council, Republic
of Hungary
Gábor Oblath is also Professor at the Corvinus University (Budapest)
and research advisor at Kopint-Tárki. Among others he was a
member of the Monetary Council of the Hungarian National Bank
and has worked with the UN ECE (Geneva) on trade and macroeconomic
developments in transition economies. Pavle Petrovic, Professor of Economics, University of
Belgrade
Pavle Petrovic was President of the Council of the National
Bank of Serbia, and assistant finance minister in the reformist
Government of Serbia. He was co-founder and director of CES
Mecon, a private consultancy and think tank, where he led projects
on macro-stabilization and reforms in transition. Michael Landesmann, Scientific Director, The Vienna Institute
for International Economic Studies (Chair)
Michael Landesmann is also professor of economics and department
head of economic theory and quantitative economics at the Johannes
Kepler University, Linz, Austria. His research focuses on international
economics, economic growth and structural change, industrial
economics and labour markets.
The current
global economic crisis is affecting the countries of Central,
Eastern and Southeastern Europe (CEE and SEE) in some ways more
severely than other European countries. Moreover these economies
face more con-straints in putting the types of policies in place
which are currently pursued in most of Western Europe, the USA
and Japan. However, policies designed to stabilize the banking
system and provide fiscal stimulus have as much justifi-cation
to be pursued in these economies as in the higher-income countries.
Therefore a coordinated approach by EU institutions and EU governments
(in cooperation with IFIs) is needed to find a path out of the
crisis.
This panel will discuss how the international financial crisis
is affecting different CEE and SEE economies as well as the
possibility for coordinated policy packages to be put in place.