Kick-off for reform

This World Cup year sees Germany eagerly awaiting the performance of its national football team. Strategy and line-up still need fine-tuning if we are to compete successfully at international level. The same is true of the German economy. Though Germany has the potential to play in the top flight, it has for years been trailing behind on growth. The major reforms required to trigger a fundamental turnaround have yet to get under way.

Our goals are well known: higher growth and employment, lower public debt and more individual responsibility for social security. Like the next match for footballers, the next reform often seems to be the most difficult for policymakers to approach. But no more time should be lost: we must use the current economic momentum to take the offensive on reform.

“The best reformers the world has ever seen are those who commence on themselves”. Germany’s private banks have taken this saying by George Bernard Shaw to heart in recent years and faced up to the challenges of change. Successfully so. The banks have recovered their self-confidence – also in the international arena. Now that costs have been cut, returns must begin to grow more strongly again. But too many players in the German banking sector are focusing only on the defence. This makes it impossible in many areas of the industry to present an offensive line-up and modernise. Important reforms in the banking market have yet to take place.

Is Germany ready to make radical changes in economic, financial and social policy? What lessons can we learn from other countries? How much scope do we have to shape our future? This is what we want to discuss with high-ranking experts at the XVIIIth German Banking Congress.