Izmir hosts Europe Forum
Posted by meb at November 4th, 2008
The ninth annual Northern and Southern European Economic Forum began yesterday in İzmir. The conference is being attended by presidents and prime ministers as well as many high-level government officials from 29 European countries.
The forum’s theme this year is “Turkey: A strong partnership for Europe.” The event, organized by the İzmir Chamber of Commerce and European Relations, or INEA, is being held at the Swiss Otel Grand Efes.
The president of INEA and former German minister, Jürgen Gramke noted that it was surprising that İzmir had lost out to Milano as the EXPO 2015 host city. He said that the opportunity to present İzmir as the European city that it is, and to show European unity with Turkey, was now gone.
Gramke pointed out that INEA’s planned theme for EXPO 2015, had it been awarded to İzmir, was health. In addition, Gramke told attendees that İzmir Chamber of Commerce’s plans to hold a health seminar in 2009, to be attended by professionals from around the globe, would show what a missed opportunity İzmir not being awarded the EXPO 2015 was.
Gramke also said that the current economic crisis was causing problems for a lot of people and that it would continue to do so for a while. “The time for making money from artificial financial products is over. When you look 10 years ahead, you will find that the Anglo- American financial systems will be impaired. This system encourages consumption based on credit and functions on risk. This conference is even more important because financial and economic crises are interlinked,” said Gramke. He noted that some guests had to cancel in order to deal with the effects of the economic crisis in their own countries, and went on to congratulate Turkish President Abdullah Gül, on Turkey being elected to the United Nations Security Council.
In his speech Gramke also said that Europe was not taking into consideration some of the problems Turkey faced in the southeastern regions and that there were double standards and differing views on it. Gramke called on Europe to, “take quicker and more aggressive action to find solutions to these problems.”
İzmir Chamber of Commerce Board President Ekrem Demirtaş, also spoke at the opening ceremony and noted that there was a global crisis. “I hope that our countries can get over this difficult time with minimal damage,” he said. “We have $142 billion in trade with Europe. We hosted 6 million European tourists last year,” he said. “More than 5 million Turks live in Europe. We have over 7 million people of Balkan descent in our country. 5 percent of our country is in Europe and at some point we feel that we can say we are a part of the European Union. In other words that we have a common past,” said Demirtaş.
The opening ceremony was attended by many guests, including Turkish President Abdullah Gül; President of Montenegro, Filip Vujanoviç; Croatian President Stjepan Mesic; Bosnian President Haris Sladjzic; and Bulagrıan Vice President Melgena Plugtschieva. Other high-ranking officials included the Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gönül, Albanian Vice President for the Economy, Eno Bozdo and the former European Commission President Jacques Santer.
source: Turkish Daily News
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