He came to Harvard in 1972 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Marshall Plan, and established the German Marshall Fund of the United States – as our Thank You Gift to America. The second speech is by Chancellor Willy Brandt. There is, of course, the famous speech by George Marshall some sixty years ago in which he announced the plan that became a hallmark of American statecraft. This ever growing list reminds me of the feeling you get when you buy a new shirt and try to find all the pins holding it together: there is always one more than you think.īut first of all let me say this: A German Foreign Minister cannot address Harvard University without having at least two great transatlantic speeches in his mind. In that sense, this morning's event at “the other place down the road” - like the topics of this Harvard conference - are very much symptomatic of the way foreign policy has developed over the last few years.
#Focused synonym full#
Increasingly, however, Foreign Ministers are finding their plates full of new issues – climate change, energy security, hunger, protection against pandemics, better control of capital markets. Again: modern Germany!Ĭertainly the classic foreign policy topics still dominate our news and our minds. I would argue it only shows how times have changed. You might be wondering: Is that really part of the job-description of a Foreign Minister? Sounds almost blasphemic, doesn't it? There I witnessed the announcement by MIT and the German Fraunhofer Gesellschaft of a new ambitious partnership in information exchange and applied research on climate and energy security.
I hope it is not too shocking if I admit to you here at Harvard that I have just come from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After all: this is a conference on “Modern Germany”. You may be asking yourself what a soccer fan is doing at a baseball game? Well, a Foreign Minister must by definition be open to the unexpected and new. That it should happen when the Red Sox are playing the Yankees is of course an additional privilege. I had always hoped to be invited to Harvard some day. It is indeed an honour to address this distinguished audience. Thank you very much for your very kind introduction.
0 kommentar(er)
