Spring Seminar 2025: Growing Cities vs. Shrinking Countryside in Central Europe

03  June 2025    8:30 am CEST

In cooperation with:
  

Venue

Vienna City Hall
Wappensaal, first floor
Lichtenfelsgasse 2
1010 Vienna

Registration

Description

Programme

08:30 – 09:00 Registration and Coffee

09:00 – 09:30 Welcome Addresses

  • NN, Executive City Councillor of Finance, Business, Labour, International Affairs and Vienna Public Utilities (tba)
  • Hannes Swoboda, President, wiiw
  • Robert Stehrer, Scientific Director, wiiw

09:30 – 10:30 Keynote Address: Political trust and economic development in European regions
Andrés Rodríguez-Pose, Princesa de Asturias Chair and Professor of Economic Geography, London School of Economics and Political Science

10:30 – 11:00 Coffee break

11:00 – 12:15 Panel discussion: Challenges of urban renewal in Central Europe

  • Moderator: Heidrun Maier-de Kruijff, Director of the VÖWG Association of the Public Sector and Public Economy
  • Rudiger Ahrend, Head of the Economic Analysis, Data and Statistics Division in the OECD Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs, Regions, and Cities
  • Jakub Mazur, Deputy Mayor Wroclaw (tbc)
  • Alexandra Sandu, Lecturer in Human Geography, Cardiff University
  • Peter Wieser, Head of the City of Vienna Municipal Department for Economic Affairs, Labour and Statistics (MA 23)

12:15 – 12:45 Presentation of wiiw forecasts for Central, East and Southeast Europe

  • Richard Grieveson, Deputy Director, wiiw

12:45 – 13:45 Buffet luncheon

13:45 – 14:45 Keynote Address: Sustainability and resilience in European regions

  • Kata Tüttő, President of the European Committee of the Regions, Brussels

14:45 – 16:00 Panel discussion: How to avoid becoming one of the 'places that don't matter'

  • Moderator: Thomas Prorok, Managing Director, Centre of Public Administration Research (KDZ), Vienna
  • Dubravko Bilić, Mayor of Ludbreg
  • Ivana Marković, Mayor of Supetar
  • Roman Römisch, Senior Economist, wiiw, Vienna
  • Thomas Schwab, Senior Expert European Economics, Bertelsmann Stiftung, Berlin

16:00 – 16:30 Coffee break

16:30 – 17:15 Presentations on the challenges for the regional development of Ukraine: European lessons learned from territorial reform, transition and EU accession processes

  • Moderator: Mario Holzner, Executive Director, wiiw, Vienna
  • Andrej Horvat, Deputy Programme Director, U-LEAD with Europe, Kyiv
  • Ambre Maucorps, Economist, wiiw, Vienna

17:15    End of seminar

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