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World Economic Forum: opening speech and bilateral meetings
On 23 January, Alain Berset opens the WEF Annual Meeting with Klaus Schwab, just before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The theme of the year: “Creating a Shared Future in a Fractured World”. He calls for 2018 to be “the year of international cooperation and multilateralism” and warns against national withdrawal: if mistrust spreads, the poorest and most fragile will be the first to suffer.
More than a dozen meetings in four days. Narendra Modi on 22 January, with Johann Schneider-Ammann: investment protection and free trade between EFTA and India. Then Angela Merkel, Theresa May, Charles Michel, Petro Poroshenko, European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici, Benjamin Netanyahu, Saad Hariri, Ilham Aliyev, Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan, Paul Kagame, the new Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, and Argentina’s Mauricio Macri with Doris Leuthard.
He also debates in public: on fragile cities; on the social contract of the 21st century with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos in an SRF programme; on democracy in the post-truth era at the Open Forum. At the dinner of Swiss personalities, he links Davos to “fake news” through Arthur Conan Doyle, who made the world believe Sherlock Holmes was dead, and defends solidarity between the language regions against the “No Billag” initiative.
Monday 22 January 2018 — Davos
- Meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Tuesday 23 January 2018 — Davos
- Opening speech at the Annual Meeting, with Klaus Schwab
- Meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan
- Panel “From Fragile Cities to Renewal”
- Dinner hosted by Klaus Schwab, address
- Swiss Personalities Dinner, address
Wednesday 24 January 2018 — Davos
- Digital Switzerland breakfast
- Meetings with Saad Hariri, Prime Minister of Lebanon, and Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel
- SRF television debate “The 21st Century Social Compact”, with Juan Manuel Santos
- Meetings with Chancellor Angela Merkel, President Ilham Aliyev, President Paul Kagame and European Commissioner Pierre Moscovici
- Meeting with Argentine President Mauricio Macri, with Doris Leuthard
- Meeting with British Prime Minister Theresa May
Thursday 25 January 2018 — Davos
- Meetings with Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa, Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko
- Open Forum “Democracy in a Post-Truth Era”
Speeches on this site
- Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum 2018
- Allocution au dîner du WEF offert par Klaus Schwab (French-language page)
- Allocution au « Swiss Personalities Dinner » du WEF (in German, French-language page)
Sources