Kaput! The End of the German Miracle – In conversation with Wolfgang Münchau
On Tuesday 25 February 2025 from 6.30pm to 7.30pm GMT on Zoom, join Wolfgang Münchau, director of EuroIntelligence, and Rhian Chilcott, Senior Advisor at Berlin Global Advisors for their conversation on Wolfgang’s book Kaput: The End of the German Miracle.
Until recently, Germany appeared to be a paragon of economic and political success. Angela Merkel was widely seen as the true ‘leader of the free world’, and Germany’s export-driven economic model seemed to deliver prosperity. But recent events – from Germany’s dependence on Russian gas to its car industry’s delays in the race to electric – have undermined this view.
In Kaput, Wolfgang Münchau argues that the weaknesses of Germany’s economy have, in fact, been brewing for decades. The neo-mercantilist policies of the German state, driven by close connections between the country’s industrial and political elite, have left Germany technologically behind over-reliant on authoritarian Russia and China – and with little sign of being able to adapt to the digital realities of the 21st century. It is an essential read for anyone interested in the future of Europe’s biggest economy.
Wolfgang Münchau is a journalist and commentator who focuses on the European economy and the European Union. He is director of leading news service Eurointelligence and a columnist for the New Statesman. Prior to this, he worked for the Financial Times, where he wrote a weekly column about the European Union and the European economy.
Rhian Chilcott relocated to Berlin and joined Berlin Global Advisors in September 2023. She also worked for the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) for over 15 years where she was the Director General before moving to Washington DC to open the CBI’s first international office.
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