American Council On Germany

Compounding Crises and their Collective Impact on Global Food Security
2023-12-13 11:00 - 12:00 (America/New_York)
The Covid-19 pandemic was a major setback for the path toward eradicating world hunger. Now, climate change, water scarcity, population growth, and multiple conflicts around the globe, such as the war in Ukraine and the Middle East, are making it difficult for the global community to get back on track. Availability and access to nutritious food are in jeopardy. Although Africa remains the worst affected region, many families in Europe and the United States struggle to afford a nutritious diet faced with high inflation and continued supply chain disruptions.
On December 13, 1014 and the American Council on Germany will revisit the topic of food security in their virtual series Resilience & Adaptation 2.0. Join us for a discussion with Ambassador Ertharin Cousin, CEO and Managing Director of Food Systems for the Future and former Executive Director of the United Nations World Food Program, and Alexander Müller, Managing Director of TMG Think Tank for Sustainability. Ambassador Ertharin Cousin currently serves as the CEO and Managing Director of Food Systems for the Future, a nutrition impact investment fund; a Distinguished Fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs; a Bosch Academy, Robert Weizsäcker Fellow; and as a Visiting Scholar at the Stanford University, Center on Food Security and Environment.
From 2012 until 2017, she led the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP). As Executive Director, Ambassador Cousin guided the 14,000-member WFP team, feeding more than 80 million people each year while she identified and championed longer-term, more sustainable solutions for global food insecurity and hunger.
In 2009, Ambassador Cousin was nominated and confirmed as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN Agencies for Food and Agriculture in Rome. Prior to her global hunger work, she helped lead the U.S. domestic fight to end hunger including service as the Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of America’s Second Harvest -now Feeding America. She is currently a member of the Bayer AG Supervisory Board, the Mondelez International Board of Directors, the Royal DSM Sustainability Board, and a Trustee of the African agriculture thinktank Academia2063.
She is a graduate of the University of Illinois at Chicago, the University of Georgia Law School, and the University of Chicago Executive Management Program-Finance for Non-Financial Executives. She has been listed numerous times on the Forbes 100 Most Powerful Women List, as the Fortune Most Powerful Woman in Food and Drink, on Time’s 100 Most Influential People list, and as one of the 500 Most Powerful People on the Planet by Foreign Policy magazine.
Alexander Müller is the Founder and Managing Director of TMG – Think Tank for Sustainability in Berlin and Study Leader of “The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity for Agriculture and Food (TEEBAgriFood)” hosted by UN Environment. He is a Member of the German Council for Sustainability.
Previously, he served as the Assistant-Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) from 2006 to 2013, as a member of the UN Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC), and as chair of the United Nations System Standing Committee on Nutrition (UNSCN). In Germany, he served as State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food, and Agriculture from 2001 to 2005, and as State Secretary in the Ministry of Youth, Family Affairs, and Health in the state of Hesse, among others.
Mr. Müller received a diploma in sociology at the Philipps-University in Marburg.

German Politics Against the Backdrop of Open Conflict in the Middle East
2023-12-14 18:00 - 21:00
The ACG will host a discussion and reception with Stephan Detjen, Chief Correspondent for Deutschlandradio and Director of the Berlin Studio.
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org.
Stephan Detjen is Chief Correspondent for Deutschlandradio and heads the station’s capital city studio in Berlin. Previously, he worked as Deutschlandfunk’s Editor-in-Chief in Cologne and as a legal policy correspondent in Karlsruhe, among other positions. Mr. Detjen is a member of the board of the Bundespressekonferenz and was a member of the foundation board for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade from 2013 to 2018. He studied Law and History in Munich, Aix-en-Provence, and Speyer.

The Shifting Geo-Economic Landscape: A German Perspective
2023-12-15 08:00 - 10:00
The ACG and the Pittsburgh Committee on Foreign Relations will host a breakfast briefing with Dr. Christian Forwick, Deputy Director-General for External Economic Relations, Trade Policy, and America in the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action.
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org.
Christian Forwick has served as the Deputy Director-General for External Economic Relations, Trade Policy, and America in the German Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action since July 2018. Prior to this, he was head of the Ministry’s budget division. After starting his career in the public administration in 1994, he worked for many years in the area of foreign economic relations, starting with bilateral relations with South Africa, followed by export financing and export promotion, and finally specializing in trade policy. He spent several years at the German Mission to the WTO in Geneva and in the department of Foreign Economic Relations in the Federal Chancellery.
Mr. Forwick grew up in Spain and began his academic career in Ecuador (Quito). He studied law in Germany (Saarbruecken, Muenster, and Hamburg) and Switzerland (Geneva). He holds a PhD from the University of Muenster and spent a year as a visiting scholar at the Southern Methodist University in Dallas, TX.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2023-12-18 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us for the 100th Kaffeepause – and last of the year – on Monday, December 18, at 9:00 am ET with ACG Young Leader alumnus Matthias Deiß, Deputy Director of ARD’s television studio in Berlin. Matthias Deiß is the Deputy Director of ARD’s Hauptstadtstudio in Berlin and deputy editor-in-chief of television. From 2018 to 2021, he served as the editorial director for ARD’s political magazine Kontraste. Before this, he worked from 2012 to 2017 as a TV correspondent with ARD. He studied communications and political science at the University of Munich and at the German School of Journalism in Munich. In 2008, he participated in the ACG’s Young Leaders Conference.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-01-08 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, January 8, at 9:00 am ET for the first Kaffeepause of the year with Matthew Karnitschnig, Chief Europe Correspondent for Politico. Matthew Karnitschnig is POLITICO’s chief Europe correspondent, based in Berlin. He joined the publication in 2015 from the Wall Street Journal, where he spent 15 years in a variety of positions as a reporter and editor in the U.S. and Europe.
In a career spanning two decades, Mr. Karnitschnig has been on the front lines of some of the defining political and economic stories of our time. In 2008, he covered the fall of Lehman Brothers and the financial crisis that ensued. He was part of a team of Journal reporters that won a Gerald Loeb award and was named a Pulitzer finalist for National Reporting in 2009.
He subsequently spearheaded the WSJ’s coverage of the eurozone debt crisis as the paper’s Germany bureau chief and European economics editor. He led the team that was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in International Reporting in 2011 and won an Overseas Press Club award in 2012.
Mr. Karnitschnig previously worked as a journalist for BusinessWeek, Reuters, and Bloomberg.
The son of an Austrian father and an American mother, he grew up in Arizona, where he got his start reporting as a stringer for the Phoenix Gazette during high school.

From Digitalization to Transportation: Understanding Germany’s Economy
2024-01-08 19:00 - 21:00
On January 8, the American Council on Germany will host a discussion and dinner with Dr. Volker Wissing, Federal Minister for Digital and Transport and Member of the German Bundestag (FDP) on “From Digitalization to Transportation: Understanding Germany’s Economy”
Price: $95 for dues-paying ACG Members; $125 Non-Members
Dr. Volker Wissing has been the Federal Minister for Digital and Transport since December 2021. He is a Member of the Bundestag for the Free Democratic Party (FDP), representing the Südpfalz. From 2020 to 2021, he served as the Secretary General of the FDP. Previously, he was a member of the state parliament of Rhineland-Platinate and served as Deputy Minister-President of the state and as the Minister for Economic Affairs, Transportation, Agriculture, and Viticulture from 2016 to 2021. Dr. Wissing was a Member of the Bundestag from 2004 to 2013, and served as the Chair of the Bundestag’s Finance Committee from 2009 to 2011 and as the Deputy Chair of the FDP Parliamentary Group in the Bundestag from 2011 to 2013. Since 2013, he has been a member of the FDP’s Executive Committee.
A lawyer by training, Dr. Wissing was a judge and public prosecutor in Zweibrücken and Landau in der Pfalz from 1997 to 1999, and was appointed judge at the district court in Landau in der Pfalz in 2001. He studied Law in Saarbrücken and Freiburg.

Superwahljahr 2024: What to Watch in Taiwan’s Upcoming Election
2024-01-10 11:00 - 12:00
On January 13, 2024, Taiwan’s voters will go to the polls to elect a successor to President Tsai Ing-wen, who is term-limited. Who will succeed her as three parties jockey for support? Some analysts believe the election will be a referendum on relations with China, but others think domestic issues (like housing and wages) will be top of mind. What issues will inform Taiwan’s political debate?
The election is being watched closely as it will likely impact relations between Taiwan and China as well as Taiwan’s broader role in the world. Join the American Council on Germany for a discussion with ACG Board member and Young Leader alumna Tara Hariharan, who just returned from a two-week study tour to Taiwan and serves as Managing Director of Global Macro Research at NWI Management LP, and Dr. Gudrun Wacker, Senior Fellow in the Asia Division of the German Institute for International Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP).
This will be the first in a series of events organized by the ACG under the heading Superwahljahr 2024. Starting with Taiwan in January and running through the U.S. presidential election in November, national elections will be held in more than 50 countries and some 3.9 billion people (or 49% of the world population) will be eligible to vote. Tara Hariharan (ACG Board Member and 2016 Young Leader) is Managing Director of Global Macro Research at NWI Management LP, a New York-based global macro hedge fund with an emphasis on emerging markets. As head of macro research for the firm since 2012, Tara focuses on economic activity, macro-political trends, and policy in the U.S. and China and is a keen student of European political economy. She directs top-down analysis of macroeconomic data, monetary and fiscal policy, and political trends for countries and regions worldwide, and well as maintenance and constant evolution of NWI’s “macro dashboard” with a strategic focus on potential investment opportunities in fixed income, equities, foreign exchange, and commodities. Her analysis is notably informed by sustained dialogue with a diverse group of high-level global policymakers in both developed and emerging markets.
Ms. Hariharan earned a bachelor’s degree in Anthropology summa cum laude from Princeton University in 2007. She was awarded a 2014 American Marshall Memorial Fellowship by the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She is a Member of the Council on Foreign Relations and is closely involved with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Dr. Gudrun Wacker is a Senior Fellow in the Asia Division of the German Institute for International Security Affairs (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, SWP), a Berlin-based thinktank. Her research focuses on Chinese foreign and security policy (especially EU-China relations), Taiwan, and security cooperation in the Asia-Pacific and Indo-Pacific. She joined SWP in 2001. Prior to that, she served as a Researcher at the Federal Institute for Russian, East European, and International Studies in Cologne. Since 2018, she has been an EU representative at the ASEAN Regional Forum Expert and Eminent Persons

Discussion and luncheon with Ambassador Andreas Michaelis
2024-01-17 12:00 - 14:00
The ACG and the World Affairs Council of Charlotte will host a discussion and luncheon in Charlotte, NC with H.E. Andreas Michaelis, German Ambassador to the United States.
Andreas Michaelis has been the German Ambassador to the United States since August 2023. Previously, he served as State Secretary of the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. Ambassador Michaelis joined the German Foreign Service in 1989. He served as Private Secretary to the Minister of State at the Foreign Office, at the Embassy in Tel Aviv, and subsequently held several positions in Bonn and Berlin including Spokesman of the Federal Foreign Office. He then served as Ambassador to the Republic of Singapore, as Director for Asian and Pacific Affairs, and as Director for Near and Middle Eastern Affairs and North Africa at the Foreign Office before being appointed Ambassador to the State of Israel and then Political Director of the Federal Foreign Office. From 2018 to 2020, he served as State Secretary for the first time; from 2020 to 2022, he was Germany’s Ambassador to the United Kingdom; from 2022 to 2023 he again served as State Secretary.
Andreas Michaelis studied Political Sciences and Philosophy at the Universities of Hanover and Oxford.

Almost Three Years into Germany’s Geopolitical Zeitenwende: What to Expect in 2024
2024-01-18 11:00 - 12:00
In February 2021 Russia launched its war of aggression in Ukraine. Just days later the newly-minted German Chancellor Olaf Scholz held his historic Zeitenwende speech. In it, he said that things would not be the same as they were before Russia’s attack, and he outlined some fundamental changes in Germany’s foreign, security, and energy policy. Almost three years later, the war in Ukraine drags on, and new crises have arisen, such as the open conflict in Gaza and concerns over migration. Chancellor Scholz and his Ampelkoalition are struggling in the polls.
Join the American Council on Germany for a discussion about Germany’s role in the world in uncertain and volatile times and what to watch in the year ahead with Dr. Stefan Fröhlich, Professor of International Politics and Political Economy at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. Stefan Fröhlich is Professor of International Politics and Political Economy at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He is also currently a guest professor at the College of Europe (in Brugge and Natolin) at Oxford University and at the Universities of Bonn and Zurich. His fields of research include EU foreign, economic, and security policy; transatlantic relations; German foreign, economic, and security policy; and international political economy. He is a frequent commentator on international affairs for German and international media.
Dr. Fröhlich was Director of the postgraduate European Studies Program at the Center for European Integration Studies in Bonn from 1998 to 2002 and spent time in Washington, DC, as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins (2002-03); the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2007); and the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Academy (2016-17).
He is a board member of the German Atlantic Council (Berlin), Center for European Integration Studies (Bonn), German Council on Foreign Relations (Berlin), German Society for Political Science, Association for European Integration (Berlin), and the Institute for European Politics (Berlin). He is the author of numerous books and more than 200 articles on German and European foreign policy and transatlantic relations.
He studied Political Science, Economics, as well as American and Spanish Literature in Bonn, Paris, and Washington (MA 1985; Ph.D. 1989; “Habilitation” (Dr.phil.habil.) 1996).

The AfD and a Secret Plan to Change Germany
2024-01-24 11:00 - 12:00
In late November, senior representatives from Germany’s Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) gathered for a secret meeting with neo-Nazis and other like-minded individuals to discuss Germany’s migration policy and who should count as being German. They developed a plan to expel millions of people from Germany. Critics have compared the meeting to the Wannsee Conference.
The story broke on January 10, when journalists from CORRECTIV released a report on the meeting and its attendees. Since then, many German cities have seen anti-fascist protests. Government leaders – including the Chancellor – have spoken out against the meeting, and some have called for the expulsion of the AfD from the Bundestag.
Join us on January 24 at 11:00 am ET for a virtual discussion with CORRECTIV Editor-in-Chief Justus von Daniels, who was a member of the investigative team behind the story. Dr. Justus von Daniels (2016 Kellen Fellow) serves as Editor-in-Chief for the news organization CORRECTIV. In 2015, he joined CORRECTIV as an investigative reporter. He has contributed to multiple award-winning projects.
In 2015 and 2016, he was the only journalist who sat in front of the door during secret Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations. He would get kicked out of the building only to come back again, until finally, the negotiators talked to him.
Since 2019, he has been Editor-in-Chief of CORRECTIV, alongside Olaya Argüeso. In addition to investigating the secret channels of lobbyists and illegal party donations, he developed the idea of citizen research, which led to the development of the crowdsourcing tool CrowdNewsroom.
Dr. von Daniels studied law and completed a legal traineeship. He received the Humboldt Prize for his dissertation about Jewish Law at Humboldt University in Berlin. He spent two years as a postdoc at Princeton University and in New York as a German research community scholar. In 2016, he was awarded a Kellen Fellowship by the American Council on Germany.

Road to Election: The Pulse of the Nation after Iowa and New Hampshire
2024-01-25 11:00 - 12:00
The 2024 U.S. election will significantly shape the transatlantic political environment and policy landscape. The results of this monumental election will have serious implications for the future of the United States, but also for the transatlantic relationship. Transatlantic organizations play an integral role in convening thought leaders, bringing a transatlantic perspective to U.S. and European domestic policy discussions, and influencing public discourse on both sides of the Atlantic. This will be particularly important in 2024, which is why the American Council on Germany is pleased to partner with over 20 other transatlantic organizations and political foundations on the “Road to Election 2024” virtual event series.
Running from January 2024 to January 2025, the virtual event series will host in-depth discussions and foster a vibrant exchange of ideas in the lead-up to the pivotal 2024 U.S. election. The aim of the series is multifold: to inform, to engage in dynamic dialogues, and to champion democratic values by presenting diverse perspectives. The initiative’s events will feature prominent researchers, policymakers, commentators, and civil society representatives, exploring diverse formats and a wide array of topics. From public polling and media impact to electoral demographics, the future of U.S. democracy, and pressing policy issues like trade and immigration, the “Road to Election” series aims to offer comprehensive insights for audiences in both the United States and Germany.
Join us on January 25 at 11:00 am ET as we kick off this series with a virtual discussion featuring two expert political advisors, Matt Gorman, Vice President of Target Victory, and Margie Omero, Principal at the Democratic polling firm GBAO, and moderated by Juliane Schäuble, U.S. Correspondent for der Tagesspiegel. Matt Gorman has advised presidential candidates, members of Congress, and Fortune 50 companies on communications and messaging. He is currently a Vice President at Targeted Victory, a Washington D.C.-based public affairs and digital marketing firm.
A veteran of three presidential campaigns, he most recently served as a senior advisor to Tim Scott for America. Before that, he was the Communications Director for the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), rapid response director and national spokesman for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign, and an aide to Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign.
Mr. Gorman regularly appears as an analyst on network and cable news programs. A native of Torrington, Connecticut, he is a graduate of Stonehill College and resides in Washington, DC.
Margie Omero is a Principal at the Democratic polling firm GBAO with over 25 years of experience providing strategic advice and qualitative and quantitative research to candidates, organizations, and brands. In 2022, she worked on the two most competitive gubernatorial races in the country—Governors Tony Evers (WI) and Laura Kelly (KS)—and with the only Democratic Senate pickup, Senator John Fetterman (PA). She also worked with the DSCC to help re-elect Senators Patty Murray (WA) and Michael Bennet (CO).
Her other clients have included AARP, AFL-CIO, The Center for American Progress, Third Way, Groundwork Collaborative, DCCC, DLCC, DNC, EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood, NARAL, Everytown for Gun Safety, and Brady PAC. Her work has explored some of the country’s most challenging public opinion questions, such as race, abortion rights, immigration, economic policy, climate change, corporate accountability, voting and participation, guns, aid in dying, and the January 6th riots.
Ms. Omero graduated from the University of Texas at Austin, with High Honors and Special Honors in the University honors program, writing her honors thesis using longitudinal survey data. She is professionally and academically trained in statistics and sampling and has led over a thousand qualitative sessions and focus groups.
Juliane Schäuble is the U.S. Correspondent of Der Tagesspiegel, Berlin’s biggest newspaper. Before she moved to Washington, DC, in June 2018 she was the head of the political department of the paper where she was responsible for the front page and the political section. She has more than twelve years of experience in the business and the political department of Der Tagesspiegel.
Ms. Schäuble earned her Master’s in Political Science at the University in Potsdam, Germany. Her studies included one semester at American University in Washington, DC, where she took classes in American foreign policy and worked part-time for the “American Council of Young Political Leaders” (“Washington Semester Program”).

30th John J. McCloy Awards Dinner
2024-01-31 18:00 - 21:00
On January 31, the ACG will hold the 30th John J. McCloy Awards Dinner honoring Dr. Belén Garijo, Chair of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany, and Alexander C. Karp, Co-Founder & Chief Executive Officer of Palantir Technologies Inc.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-02-05 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, February 5 at 9:00 am ET for a Kaffeepause with Malte Lehming, Opinion Writer for Tagesspiegel. Malte Lehming works as a writer for the Tagesspiegel, where he heads the opinion page. From late 2000 to 2005, he was the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief. He joined the Tagesspiegel in 1991 as foreign policy editor — focusing on security policy, transatlantic relations, and the Middle East. From 1989 to 1991, he worked as a personal assistant and speechwriter for former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt. Mr. Lehming studied philosophy, German literature, and European history in Hamburg.

Germany in the World: A Global Outlook
2024-02-05 18:00 - 20:00
On February 5, the ACG will host a discussion and reception in Washington, DC with Bundestag Member Metin Hakverdi (SPD).
For more information, please emails events@acgusa.org.
Metin Hakverdi joined the Social Democratic Party in 2002 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013. He serves on the Bundestag’s Committee on European Union Affairs and on the Budget Committee. He is the Chairman of the USA/North America Working Group within the SPD Parliamentary Group and a member of the German-American Parliamentary Friendship Group in the German Bundestag. Before being elected to the Bundestag, Mr. Hakverdi was a member of the Parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 2008 to 2013, where he was on the Budget Committee and the Committee of Public Companies and Assets.
Mr. Hakverdi attended high school in Simi Valley, California, in 1985/86 and studied law at the Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel and at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. He was a distinguished visitor at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in 2019 and a 2020 John F. Kennedy Memorial Policy Fellow at Harvard’s Center for European Studies (CES). He is a member of the Atlantik-Brücke e.V.

Two Years Into Germany’s Geopolitical Zeitenwende: Policy Recommendations For 2024 And Beyond
2024-02-06 11:00 - 12:00
On January 18, the American Council on Germany hosted a wide-ranging discussion about Germany’s Zeitenwende and the evolving geopolitical landscape with Dr. Stefan Fröhlich, Professor of International Politics and Political Economy at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He highlighted the historical significance of the Zeitenwende speech by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz – and talked about where the redefinition and implementation of German foreign, security, and energy policy stands. He shared the numerous sticking points in Germany’s ability to address today’s complex global challenges and the challenges Berlin faces as it tries to take on a greater role on the world’s stage. (Please watch the event here.)
Join the American Council on Germany for a follow-up discussion with Dr. Fröhlich about the policy solutions that the German government might consider as it navigates the uncertain and volatile global environment.
Dr. Stefan Fröhlich is Professor of International Politics and Political Economy at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg. He is currently also a guest professor at the College of Europe (in Brugge and Natolin) at Oxford University, and at the Universities of Bonn and Zurich. His fields of research include EU foreign, economic, and security policy; transatlantic relations; German foreign, economic, and security policy; and international political economy. He is a frequent commentator on international affairs for German and international media.
Dr. Fröhlich was Director of the postgraduate European Studies Program at the Center for European Integration Studies in Bonn from 1998 to 2002 and spent time in Washington, DC, as a Visiting Scholar at the Center for Transatlantic Relations at Johns Hopkins (2002-03); the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars (2007); and the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Academy (2016-17).
He is a board member of the German Atlantic Council (Berlin), Center for European Integration Studies (Bonn), German Council on Foreign Relations (Berlin), German Society for Political Science, Association for European Integration (Berlin), and the Institute for European Politics (Berlin). He is the author of numerous books and more than 200 articles on German and European foreign policy and transatlantic relations.
He studied Political Science, Economics, as well as American and Spanish Literature in Bonn, Paris, and Washington (MA 1985; Ph.D. 1989; “Habilitation” (Dr.phil.habil.) 1996).

Germany in the World: A Global Outlook
2024-02-07 18:00 - 20:00
On February 7, the ACG and the Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung’s New York Office will host a discussion and reception with Metin Hakverdi, Member of the Bundestag (SPD).
Metin Hakverdi joined the Social Democratic Party in 2002 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013. He serves on the Bundestag’s Committee on European Union Affairs and on the Budget Committee. He is the Chairman of the USA/North America Working Group within the SPD Parliamentary Group and a member of the German-American Parliamentary Friendship Group in the German Bundestag. Before being elected to the Bundestag, Mr. Hakverdi was a member of the Parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 2008 to 2013, where he was on the Budget Committee and the Committee of Public Companies and Assets.
Mr. Hakverdi attended high school in Simi Valley, California, in 1985/86 and studied law at the Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel and at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. He was a distinguished visitor at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in 2019 and a 2020 John F. Kennedy Memorial Policy Fellow at Harvard’s Center for European Studies (CES). He is a member of the Atlantik-Brücke e.V.

Postponed - Navigating Immigration Challenges in the U.S. and Germany
2024-02-08 11:00 - 12:00
While global challenges are addressed by national governments, increasingly subnational actors such as states, communities, and cities have needed to step up to take action when traditional nation-states have not been able to make progress due to political polarization and partisan gridlock. The German-American State Legislator Dialogue will take on the challenge of immigration, focusing on the role of state representatives from the United States and Germany in addressing common concerns when it comes to migration.
Immigration has deeply influenced the development of both the United States and Germany historically and today. Recent crises, such as the wave of refugees after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the migration crisis at the U.S.-Mexico border, have posed multifaceted challenges in providing immediate necessities and integrating migrants in the long term. Challenges to economic integration and social inclusion persist, including language barriers and recognition of foreign qualifications. Though immigration policy falls under federal jurisdiction, the role of U.S. states and German Länder in successful integration is crucial. State governments can aid integration by providing accessible resources for housing, language education, vocational training, and cultural programs. Recent public debates between the federal government and the Bundesländer over how to limit the influx of migrants and distribute costs for refugees have dominated the headlines. Many U.S. states have outlined the need for additional support to manage a surge of asylum seekers as some states are subject to a greater influx of migrants than others. In this discussion with state legislators on both sides of the Atlantic, we examine the impacts of immigration challenges at the state level and how collaborative efforts across different levels of government and stakeholders can best address these hurdles in light of current affairs.
Join the American Council on Germany and the Aspen Institute Germany for our next State-to-State: German-American State Legislator Dialogue for a discussion with German and American state legislators including Franziska Baum (FDP), State Parliament of the Free State of Thuringia; Senator Eva Diaz (D), Arizona State Senate; and Orkan Özdemir (SPD), State Parliament of Berlin. Franziska Baum (FDP) was born 1982 in Erfurt/Thuringia and graduated from the Landesschule Pforta in 2000. After studying information and communication management in Berlin, she worked several years in marketing roles in the public sector in Oranienburg/Brandenburg. From 2008 to 2013, Ms. Baum lived in London (UK), where she worked first for the Diocese of Westminster and later for the European Medicines Agency in financial management. Back in her home state of Thuringia, she supervised various projects on a part-time, freelance, or voluntary basis, as there was a start-up fair and a mentoring project that focused on connecting founders with experienced entrepreneurs.
In 2019, she accepted the mandate as a member of the parliamentary group of the Liberals (FDP). Her main topics are education, youth, sports, migration, justice, and accessibility. Promoting the youth, a sustainable education system, sensible digitization concepts, and modern mobility are particularly close to her heart. She is deputy district chairwoman of the Free Democrats in Erfurt, a member of the board of the Thuringian Youth Hostel Association, a member of the board of the Bürgerstifung Erfurt, and a member of the board of trustees of the school foundation of the Erfurt diocese.
As an Arizona native, Dr. Evangeline (Eva) Diaz has called Tolleson her home for over three decades and is now proud to represent Legislative District 22 as a member of the State Senate. Education has been both a passion and profession for her, culminating in a Doctorate Degree from Arizona State University in Curriculum and Instruction, and Educational Leadership. She has served in a variety of roles including as teacher and principal in Arizona public schools.
Beyond her professional endeavors, Dr. Diaz engagement in community service is extensive. She has been an active member of the City of Tolleson Planning and Zoning Commission since 2013, currently holding the position of Chair. Additionally, her involvement with organizations like the Arizona Educators Association/Red for Ed, Chicanos Por La Causa Community Center, and the Children’s Ministry at her church highlights her commitment to the community. Dr. Diaz is married with two children. She and her husband own a preschool in Avondale, a testament to their dedication to providing quality education to young learners.
Orkan Özdemir (SPD) is a German politician who has been a member of the State Parliament of Berlin since 2021, representing Tempelhof-Schöneberg. Previously, he was the chair of the local SPD working group on migration and diversity. From 2012 to 2017, he led the policy team at the non-profit BQN Berlin, an educational advocacy organization for disadvantaged youth. He then worked in the Berlin government. Mr. Özdemir studied Political Science at the Free University Berlin.

Political Developments and the Urban-Rural Divide in Germany and the United States
2024-02-08 12:30 - 14:00
The American Council on Germany and the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung will host a roundtable discussion and luncheon with a delegation of Members of the Bundestag from the CDU including Stefan Rouenhoff, Franziska Hoppermann, Maximilian Mörseburg, and Catarina dos Santos-Wintz.
For more information, please email events@acgusa.org.

The Digital Revolution in Health Care: Challenges, Opportunities, and the Need for Policy Innovation
2024-02-08 18:00 - 20:00
On February 8, the American Council on Germany, Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the German Center for Research and Innovation New York, and the Hasso Plattner Institut will host a discussion and reception with Professor Ariel D. Stern, Alexander von Humboldt Professor for Digital Health, Economics, and Policy at the Hasso Plattner Institute, Full Professor at the University of Potsdam, and Poronui Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School; and moderated by Dr. Thomas J. Fuchs, Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, Dean of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Health, and Professor of Computational Pathology and Computer Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
New medical technologies have saved and improved millions of lives in recent decades. Yet the digital technologies that are transforming contemporary health care, such as digital medical devices, applications of medical software, and artificial intelligence tools to diagnose and treat patients, would be unrecognizable to the 20th-century architects of our regulatory and healthcare delivery institutions. For example, many digital health applications (apps) meet the formal definition of a medical device, yet their fully software-based nature means that established practices for evaluating their safety and efficacy are incompatible with the dynamic nature of the apps themselves. The quickly transforming scientific and technological foundations of medical invention—combined with the rapid pace of innovation—no longer fit our existing institutional structures. This mismatch underlies many of today’s challenges in commercializing new products and creates significant bottlenecks for incorporating new innovations into care delivery. Professor Stern’s presentation will focus on how the development and adoption of healthcare technology are shaped by the interaction between healthcare innovators, regulators, and healthcare delivery institutions. She will also present policy and business model innovations that address key challenges to technology adoption in this setting.

Dr. Ariel Dora Stern is the Poronui Associate Professor of Business Administration in the Technology and Operations Management Unit at Harvard Business School and a Faculty Member of the Harvard-MIT Center for Regulatory Science. Her research focuses on technology management and innovation in health care, using methods from econometrics and data science to curate and analyze novel datasets. Her projects consider the regulation, strategy, and economics of healthcare, focusing on emerging healthcare technologies and delivery modalities. She received her Ph.D. from Harvard, where she was a National Bureau of Economic Research Predoctoral Fellow in the Economics of Health and Aging. She holds an undergraduate degree in economics from Dartmouth College, where she was a Presidential Scholar. From 2020 to 2021, Dr. Stern served as the Director for International Health Care Economics at the Health Innovation Hub, an independent think tank of the German Federal Ministry of Health focused on digital transformation projects. In April 2024, she is slated to assume a chair at the Hasso Plattner Institute, where she has been named an Alexander von Humboldt Professor.
Dr. Stern’s research focuses on technology management and innovation in health care. Her projects consider the regulation, strategy, and economics of health care, focusing on understanding the drivers of new product development among firms and the determinants of how new medical technologies are adopted and used in practice. Stern is particularly interested in the intersection of the regulation, firm strategy, and economics of healthcare. She also researches the digital transformation of medical technology and healthcare delivery, investigating the policy, business, and managerial questions raised by the growth of digital health and the digital transformation of medicine. Her research has been cited by Bloomberg, the New York Times, and National Public Radio.

Dr. Thomas J. Fuchs is a scientist in the groundbreaking field of Computational Pathology, focused on using artificial intelligence to analyze images of tissue samples to identify disease, recommend treatment, and predict outcomes. In October 2020, he was appointed Co-Director of the Hasso Plattner Institute for Digital Health at Mount Sinai, Dean of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Human Health, and Professor of Computational Pathology and Computer Science at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. In this role, he leads the next generation of scientists and clinicians using artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop novel diagnostic tools and treatments for acute and chronic diseases.
Dr. Fuchs’s work includes developing novel methods for the analysis of digital microscopy slides to better understand genetic mutations and their influence on changes in tissues. He has been recognized for developing large-scale systems for mapping the pathology, origins, and progress of cancer. This breakthrough was achieved by building a high-performance computer cluster to train deep neural networks at petabyte scale.
Before joining Mount Sinai, Dr. Fuchs was Director of the Warren Alpert Center for Digital and Computational Pathology at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) and Associate Professor at Weill Cornell Graduate School for Medical Sciences. At MSK, he led a laboratory focused on computational pathology and medical machine learning. Dr. Fuchs co-founded Paige, in 2017, which, under his tenure, became a leader in the field of digital pathology. He is a former research technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a visiting scientist at the California Institute of Technology. Dr. Fuchs holds a Doctor of Sciences in Machine Learning from ETH Zurich and an MS in Technical Mathematics from the Graz Technical University in Austria.

A Global Outlook: Germany in the World
2024-02-08 18:00 - 20:00
On February 8, the Boston Warburg Chapter will host a discussion and reception with Metin Hakverdi, Member of the Bundestag (SPD). This event is held in partnership with the Consulate General of Germany in Boston, the Goethe Institut, and the German-American Business Council of Boston. Metin Hakverdi joined the SPD in 2002 and has been a member of the German Bundestag since 2013. His reelection in Hamburg-Harburg in 2021 was resounding — with nearly 40 percent of the vote. He serves on the Bundestag’s Committee on European Union Affairs and on the Finance Committee. He is the Chairman of the USA/North America Working Group within the SPD Parliamentary Group and a member of the German-American Parliamentary Friendship Group in the German Bundestag.
Before being elected to the Bundestag, Mr. Hakverdi was a member of the Parliament of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg from 2008 to 2013, where he was on the Budget Committee and the Committee of Public Companies and Assets. He attended high school in Simi Valley, California, in 1985/86 and studied law at the Christian-Albrecht University in Kiel and at Indiana University’s Maurer School of Law. He became licensed to practice law in 2000.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-02-12 08:00 - 17:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Monday, February 12 at 12:00 pm ET for a Kaffeepause with Stephan Detjen, Chief Correspondent for Deutschlandradio and Director of the Berlin Studio. Stephan Detjen is Chief Correspondent for Deutschlandradio and heads the station’s capital city studio in Berlin. Previously, he worked as Deutschlandfunk’s Editor-in-Chief in Cologne and as a legal policy correspondent in Karlsruhe, among other positions. Mr. Detjen is a member of the board of the Bundespressekonferenz and was a member of the foundation board for the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade from 2013 to 2018. He studied Law and History in Munich, Aix-en-Provence, and Speyer.

Election Season and U.S. Foreign Policy: Implications for Ukraine Support
2024-02-12 09:00 - 10:00
As the U.S. election campaign heats up, the future of U.S. support for Ukraine has become a hot-button issue. With a critical legislative bill that includes foreign policy assistance alongside border security and asylum policy measures still under negotiation in Congress, the likelihood of its passage dwindles. This scenario poses significant risks for Ukraine in its defense against the Russian invasion and places additional pressure on European allies to swiftly expand their assistance to Ukraine, especially in military aid.
In a virtual discussion moderated by Dr. Dominik Tolksdorf, Research Fellow of U.S. Politics and Transatlantic Relations at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), with U.S. foreign policy experts, we will discuss the factors shaping U.S. policy on Ukraine during the election year, the geopolitical ramifications of conflicts such as those expanding in the Middle East, the options for the Biden administration to continue the support, and the implications for Ukraine and European allies. The discussion speakers include Scott Cullinane, Director of Government Affairs, Razom for Ukraine; Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor, Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program, Center for a New American Security (CNAS); and Hannah Thoburn, Senior Professional Staff Member for Europe and Eurasia, U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee (tbc). Scott Cullinane is the Director of Government Affairs at Razom for Ukraine, a 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to unlocking the potential of Ukraine and building U.S.-Ukrainian ties. Before this, he was the founding Executive Director of the U.S.-Europe Alliance, a bipartisan, not-for-profit foundation dedicated to mobilizing Americans to advocate for the enduring strategic and economic partnership between the U.S. and Europe. Prior to this, he served in various positions with the House Foreign Affairs Committee, including as Professional Staff Member for the Europe Subcommittee, where he was responsible for a jurisdiction including the European Union, Russia, Ukraine, and Central Asia. Prior to this, he worked as a Staff Associate for the Foreign Affairs Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee. In those capacities, he played an integral role in managing subcommittee hearings, planning numerous congressional delegations, and coordinating legislative texts. From 2013 to 2014, he worked as the Director of Government Relations for Aeros, a California-based aviation and defense company.
Mr. Cullinane was the recipient of the 2021 Helmut Schmidt Fellowship hosted by the German Marshall Fund in Berlin, Germany. This prestigious position commemorates the life, service, and legacy of Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.
He is currently a Fellow at the National Security Institute, part of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School, and in the past has worked as an instructor for the American University of Central Asia. He has been selected to participate in numerous fellowships, including as a Penn Kemble Fellow with the National Endowment for Democracy, the Congressional Foreign Policy Fellowship with the Woodrow Wilson Center, and the Young Leaders Forum with GLOBSEC. He is currently a member of the “Friends of the European Humanities University,” a Belarusian university operating in Lithuania.
Mr. Cullinane holds a B.A. in history from Saint Mary’s College of California and an M.A. in national security affairs from the Institute of World Politics.
Dr. Andrea Kendall-Taylor is a Senior Fellow and Director of the Transatlantic Security Program at CNAS. She works on national security challenges facing the United States and Europe, focusing on Russia, authoritarianism, and threats to democracy, and the state of the transatlantic alliance.
Prior to joining CNAS, Dr. Kendall-Taylor served for eight years as a senior intelligence officer. From 2015 to 2018, she was deputy national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (DNI). In this role, she led the U.S. intelligence community’s (IC) strategic analysis on Russia, represented the IC in interagency policy meetings, provided analysis to the National Security Council, and briefed the DNI and other senior staff for White House and international meetings. Prior to joining the NIC, Dr. Kendall-Taylor was a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency where she worked on Russia and Eurasia, the political dynamics of autocracies, and democratic decline.
Outside CNAS, Dr. Kendall-Taylor has been a CNN national security analyst. She is also a Distinguished Practitioner in Grand Strategy at Yale University’s Jackson School of Global Affairs and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service. Her work has been published in numerous political science and policy journals, including the Journal of Peace Research, Democratization, Journal of Democracy, Foreign Affairs, The Washington Post, The Washington Quarterly, and Foreign Policy.
Dr. Kendall-Taylor received her BA in politics from Princeton University and her PhD in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles. She was a Fulbright scholar in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, where she conducted dissertation research on oil and autocracy.
Hannah Thoburn is a Research Fellow at the Hudson Institute specializing in Russian and Ukrainian politics, civil society in Eurasia, and the U.S. relationship with Eastern Europe. Her work has examined the manipulation of historical memory for political purposes, disinformation tactics and campaigns, Vladimir Putin’s foreign and domestic policy goals, as well as Russian influence in Latin America. Ms. Thoburn has also served as an election monitor in Ukraine and a poll worker in Washington, DC. Before joining Hudson, she was a Senior Research Assistant at the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution as well as a Eurasia Analyst at the Foreign Policy Initiative. She spent two years as a Peace Corps volunteer in southern Ukraine.
Ms. Thoburn holds an M.A. in International Relations from Yale University, and a B.A. in International Affairs from Florida State University.
Dr. Dominik Tolksdorf (moderator) joined DGAP in June 2022. He works as a research fellow in the area of US/transatlantic relations at the Alfred von Oppenheim Center for the Future of Europe. Previously, he had worked as a program director for foreign and security policy at the Heinrich Böll Foundation in Washington, DC since 2016. There, he focused on current developments in transatlantic relations and US and EU policies toward the EU neighborhood, especially Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, and the Balkans. Together with partners in the United States and Europe, he organized visitor programs, international study tours, workshops, and media fellowships.
Before that, Dr. Tolksdorf worked as a researcher, visiting fellow, and lecturer in Washington at the US Institute of Peace and SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, in Paris at the Institut français des relations internationales, in Brussels at the Institute for European Studies and Vesalius College, and in Munich at the Center for Applied Policy Research.
Tolksdorf holds a PhD from LMU Munich. In 2012, his book on the European Union’s policy toward Bosnia and Herzegovina, Die EU und Bosnien-Herzegowina: Außenpolitik auf der Suche nach Kohärenz, was published by Nomos.

Superwahljahr 2024: Election Upset in Pakistan
2024-02-14 11:00 - 12:00
On February 8, some 60 million Pakistanis – out of nearly 129 million registered voters – took to the polls in the country’s general election. The party of Imran Khan, the imprisoned former Prime Minister, won the most seats – but no party won a simple majority. This unexpected result is a rebuke of the country’s military leaders and has thrown the political system into disarray as Pakistan struggles to recover from an economic crisis and address militant violence.
In a deeply polarized political landscape, Pakistan’s military leaders had hoped that the election would bring an end to the political chaos that has existed since Khan was ousted in 2022. Instead, it appears that the crisis has deepened. The New York Times reported that never in the “country’s history has a politician seen such success in an election without the backing of the generals.” The election has stirred greater instability.
Both Khan and his main rival, three-time former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, declared victory on Friday, increasing uncertainty over who will form the next government at a time when swift policy action is needed to address multiple challenges. Join the American Council on Germany for a discussion about the election in Pakistan and how things might unfold with Prof. Dr. Conrad Schetter, Director of the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies. Prof. Dr. Conrad Schetter has been the Director of the Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies since 2013. From 1999 until 2013, he worked at the Center for Development Research (ZEF) at the University of Bonn, where he held the position of Acting Director.
Prof. Dr. Schetter studied geography, history, education, Persian and Indonesian at the University of Bonn. He began his academic career researching the impact of ethnicity on violent conflicts. Then, his research focused on themes such as politics of interventions, spaces of violence (e.g., ungoverned spaces, frontiers), development, humanitarian aid, conflict, Jihadi movements (e.g., Taliban), and forced migration.
He has advised German ministries as well as government organizations and NGOs. Prof. Dr. Schetter serves on several boards. He is a member of the presidency of Welthungerhilfe and of the Board of Trustees of the German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), as well as a member of the Advisory Board of the Stiftung Entwicklung und Frieden (SEF).

The Foreign Policy Implications of Elections in 2024
2024-02-16 08:30 - 10:00
The ACG and KPMG will host a breakfast briefing in Munich with Simone Menne, President of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany; Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller, Director Center on the US and Europe (CUSE) and Fritz Stern Chair at The Brookings Institution; and Ambassador Kurt Volker, Senior International Advisor and Advisory Board Member at BGR Group; in conversation with Ambassador John B. Emerson, former U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Vice Chairman at Capital Group International, and Chairman of the American Council on Germany.

Simone Menne serves as the President of the American Chamber of Commerce Germany. She started her career for ITT, later joining Deutsche Lufthansa. In 2012, Ms. Menne was appointed CFO and stayed in this position till 2015. She worked as CFO at Boehringer Ingelheim from 2016 to 2017. In both companies, she was responsible for the foundation of the digital lab. Ms. Menne serves as a non-executive board member for BMW, Henkel, Deutsche Post DHL, JCI, and Russell Reynolds. She also owns an art gallery in Kiel, Germany.

Dr. Constanze Stelzenmüller is an expert on German, European, and trans-Atlantic foreign and security policy and strategy. She is the director of the Center on the United States and Europe and the inaugural holder of the Fritz Stern Chair on Germany and trans-Atlantic Relations at Brookings. She held the Kissinger Chair on Foreign Policy and International Relations at the Library of Congress from October 2019 to March 2020 and served as the inaugural Robert Bosch Senior Fellow at Brookings from 2014 to 2019.

Prior to working at Brookings, she was a senior transatlantic fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), where she directed the influential Transatlantic Trends survey program. She also managed the “New Power, New Responsibility” project. Her expertise includes trans-Atlantic relations, German foreign policy, NATO, the European Union’s foreign, security, and defense policy, international law, and human rights.

Ambassador Kurt Volker provides strategic advice to BGR on a full range of international issues and is co-chair of BGR’s advisory board. He helps BGR clients develop and execute strategies to achieve success in key foreign markets and to navigate the complex business, government, think tank, media, and public policy environment in Washington.

Ambassador Volker is a leading expert in U.S. foreign and national security policy with 30 years of experience in various government, academic, and private sector capacities. A former career member of the U.S. Senior Foreign Service, he worked in official capacities for over 25 years under six presidential administrations. He was the U.S. Special Representative for Ukraine Negotiations from 2017-2019 and US Ambassador to NATO from 2008-2009. He currently serves on the advisory board of Augustus, an artificial intelligence company, and has previously served as a Director of CG Funds Trust and the Wall Street Fund. Other Foreign Service assignments include working with Senator John McCain and the Secretary General of NATO.

Ambassador John B. Emerson (moderator) was named Chairman of the American Council on Germany at the Council’s Annual Members Meeting on January 17, 2018. He is Vice Chairman at Capital Group International. Previously, he was the U.S. Ambassador to Germany from 2013 to 2017. In 2015, Ambassador Emerson received the State Department’s Sue M. Cobb Award for Exemplary Diplomatic Service, an award given annually to one non-career Ambassador. In 2017, the Secretary of the Navy and the Director of the CIA awarded him their highest civilian honors for his service.

Kaffeepause: What's Abuzz in Berlin?
2024-02-20 09:00 - 10:00
The ACG regularly hosts a discussion with a journalist based in Germany on the topics making the headlines and shaping political discourse. Join us on Tuesday, February 20 at 9:00 am ET for a special edition of the Kaffeepause following the Munich Security Conference with the Political Editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Stefan Kornelius. Stefan Kornelius is the Political Editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Previously, he served as Foreign Editor of the paper for nearly 20 years. In his reporting career, he has covered Germany’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU), the chancellorship of Helmut Kohl, and defense issues in Europe. He served as Berlin Bureau Chief, and from 1996 to 1999 he was the paper’s Washington correspondent. Prior to that, he was a correspondent in Bonn.
His biography of German Chancellor Angela Merkel, entitled Angela Merkel, the Chancellor and her World, has been translated into 13 languages. Mr. Kornelius is a graduate of the Henri-Nannen-Journalistenschule and studied in Bonn and at the London School of Economics.

Superwahljahr 2024: Wie bereitet sich die Sicherheitscommunity auf die globalen Wahlen vor?
2024-02-20 18:00
Zum 60. Mal kommen bei der Münchner Sicherheitskonferenz hunderte Entscheidungsträger:innen, Meinungsführer:innen und hochrangige Politiker:innen zusammen. Seit dem Terrorangriff der Hamas am 7. Oktober 2023 eskaliert die Lage in Nahost, die Ukraine kämpft weiter um ihre Freiheit und die Wahlen in den USA könnten sie internationale Sicherheitsarchitektur zusätzlich erschüttern. Was lässt sich daraus für die deutsche Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik ableiten? Und wie gut ist Europa auf einen Wechsel im Weißen Haus vorbereitet?
Darüber möchten wir nach der MSC mit
Dr. Jana Puglierin und Cathryn Clüver Ashbrook diskutieren.
Diese Einladung richtet sich an Mitglieder des American Council on Germany und der Freunde American Council on Germany e.V. sowie an Alumni des Young Leaders Conference und andere Programme des ACG. Wir freuen uns, wenn Ihr eine weitere Person mitbringt, die an einer Förderung der transatlantischen Beziehungen interessiert ist.
Wir bitten um Anmeldung bis zum 16.2.204.

Reflections on German-American Relations in an Election Year
2024-02-22 17:00 - 19:00
On February 22, the ACG and the Pittsburgh Committee on Foreign Relations will host a discussion and reception with David Gill, Consul General of Germany in New York.
David Gill has been the German Consul General in New York since August 20217. He grew up in a protestant minister’s family in Herrnhut, Saxony, in former East Germany. He was denied a higher education by the communist regime for political reasons. Instead, he trained and worked as a plumber before joining a preparatory protestant school and later the theological seminary of the Protestant Church in Berlin-Brandenburg.
In 1990, Mr. Gill initially was the chairman of Normannenstrasse Citizens’ Committee which oversaw the dissolution of the Ministry of State Security at the Stasi headquarters and served as the secretary of the Special Committee for the dissolution of the Stasi of the East German Parliament. After reunification, he became spokesman and head of the research division of the Federal Commissioner for the Stasi-Files before studying law in Berlin and Philadelphia. After holding positions in the Federal Ministry of the Interior and at the Commissioner for Data Protection and Freedom of Information in Berlin, he served as the Deputy Representative of the Council of the Protestant Church in Germany to the Federal Republic of Germany and the European Union. During Federal President Joachim Gauck’s term from 2012–2017, Mr. Gill served as State Secretary and Chief of Staff of the President.

Discussion and Reception

Supervisory Priorities for the European Central Bank in 2024
2024-02-26 12:00 - 13:30
On February 26, the ACG will host a discussion and luncheon with Dr. Thomas Gstaedtner, Head of Division in the Banking Supervisory Arm of the European Central Bank.
Dr. Thomas Gstaedtner works as a Head of Division in the banking supervisory arm of the European Central Bank. He is responsible for supervising the French banks and Commerzbank. In this function, he also leads the Country Coordination Team France and is a member of a Task Force of the Basel Committee on Counterparty Credit Risk.
Before joining the ECB, Dr. Gstaedtner worked for ten years at Deutsche Bank in London, where he held several managerial positions. In his last function at Deutsche Bank, he was the Head of Legal/Regulatory Change Management and was in charge of implementing regulatory changes in Deutsche Bank’s operations. Dr. Gstaedtner started his career at an Asset Management company in Munich as the Head of Legal, Tax, and HR. He is the founder and President of the European Banking Institute (EBI), which is based in Frankfurt. The EBI is a pan-European joint venture for research and policy advice in the area of banking, banking regulation, and banking supervision. Dr. Gstaedtner studied Law in Munich, Saarbrucken, and London and is a qualified lawyer in Germany (Rechtsanwalt) and in England/Wales (solicitor).

Europe's New AI Act: What does it mean for Europe and the U.S.?
2024-02-29 08:00 - 09:30
On February 29, the American Council on Germany and the American Business Forum on Europe will host a breakfast briefing with Oliver Süme, Partner at Fieldfisher and Chair of the Board of the Internet Industry Association, eco.

The European Parliament just passed the AI Act, which forms the world’s first legal framework for artificial intelligence and also applies to U.S. providers if they offer AI systems in the European Union. What exactly does the AI Act regulate? What impact is it expected to have on providers and users in the United States and Europe, and what consequences does the new European legal framework have for investments and transactions in the tech sector?

Oliver Süme is a Partner at the European law firm Fieldfisher and Chair of the Board of the Internet Industry Association. He advises his clients on all legal issues in the areas of IT and digitalization, in particular, IT contract law, data protection law, and legal issues relating to IT security and e-commerce. In addition, he advises companies from a wide range of industries in connection with digitalization processes and the use of new technologies such as blockchain, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and the establishment of data spaces. Mr. Süme is also Chair of the Board of eco – Association of the Internet Industry and heads the data protection working group of EuroISPA, the European umbrella organization of internet service providers.

Dealing with Disinformation: How Influential are Conspiracy Narratives?
2024-02-29 11:00 - 12:00
Around the world, the rise of populist movements is contributing to the spread of conspiracy narratives. Social media platforms and messengers provide a fertile ground for conspiracy narratives that mobilize people, reinforce anti-Semitic and anti-pluralist thinking, and also destabilize and divide societies. In a time of fake truth and alternative facts, how much impact do such narratives have – and what can be done to correct them?
Join the American Council on Germany and the German Consulate General New York for the next installment of the virtual series “Dealing with Disinformation”. NPR journalist Shannon Bond and Pia Lamberty, Managing Director of the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy gGmbH, will join us on Thursday, February 29, at 11:00 AM ET to discuss the challenge of conspiracy narratives and share ideas for countermeasures. Shannon Bond is a correspondent at NPR who reports on the impact of misleading narratives and false claims on society and democracy. She formerly covered technology for NPR’s Business Desk, where she focused on the major players in Silicon Valley and how they change our daily lives, as well as the way we work and communicate.
Ms. Bond spent 11 years as a reporter and editor at the Financial Times in New York and San Francisco. She co-hosted the award-winning FT podcast “Alphachat” which focuses on business and economics. She holds a master’s degree in journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School and a bachelor’s degree in psychology and religion from Columbia University.
Pia Lamberty is a psychologist who conducts research on conspiracy ideologies. As the Managing Director of the Center for Monitoring, Analysis and Strategy gGmbH, which she co-founded in 2021, she is at the nexus of science and society and provides evidence-based information on conspiracy narratives, disinformation, anti-Semitism, and right-wing extremism. The non-profit organization addresses current developments in the above-mentioned fields and advises decision-makers from civil society, media, and politics.
Together with Katharina Nocun, Ms. Lamberty published the bestselling non-fiction book “Fake Facts – Wie Verschwörungstheorien unser Denken bestimmen” (“Fake Facts – How Conspiracy Theories Influence Our Thinking”) in 2020. Afterwards they published “True Facts – Was gegen Verschwörungserzählungen wirklich hilft” (“True Facts – What Really Helps to Counter Conspiracy Narratives”) followed by “Gefährlicher Glaube – Die radikale Gedankenwelt der Esoterik” (“Dangerous Beliefs – The Radical World of Esoteric Thought”).
