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World Economic Forum 2023: opening speech and bilateral meetings
On 17 January, Alain Berset opens the 53rd WEF Annual Meeting with Klaus Schwab. His speech starts from Russia’s war against Ukraine, an attack on international law by a permanent member of the Security Council. He stresses inequality, which he presents as the source of populism, and the fragility of poor countries hit by the pandemic and soaring prices. He concludes: “For a long time, we considered that defending our interests, on the one hand, and protecting the most vulnerable, on the other, were two quite separate things. Today, we know that one does not go without the other.”
On the sidelines of the forum, he holds bilateral meetings with some fifteen heads of state and government. First, the neighbours of Russia or Ukraine: Sanna Marin (Finland), Andrzej Duda (Poland), Gitanas Nausėda (Lithuania), Egils Levits (Latvia), Maia Sandu (Moldova), Irakli Garibashvili (Georgia). He also meets Olena Zelenska. With Viola Amherd, he meets António Guterres: multilateralism, the Geneva Conventions, Switzerland’s role on the Security Council, climate.
He also sees Guillermo Lasso (Ecuador), with whom he takes part in an event on plastic waste, Gustavo Petro (Colombia), Rodrigo Chaves Robles (Costa Rica), Félix Tshisekedi (DR Congo), Samia Suluhu Hassan (Tanzania) and Najla Bouden (Tunisia), with whom he debates at the round table “Realizing Africa’s Century”. With Olaf Scholz, Alexander De Croo, Mark Rutte and Xavier Bettel, and on the sidelines of the opening with Ursula von der Leyen, the talks turn to Switzerland’s European policy, Horizon Europe and Erasmus+. On 19 January, he takes stock before the press at the House of Switzerland.
Speeches on this site
- World Economic Forum Davos (in French, French-language page)
Sources