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
Festsaal, first floor
Lichtenfelsgasse 2, Feststiege I
1010 Vienna

Description

Programme

08:30 – 09:00 Registration and Coffee

09:00 – 09:30 Welcome Addresses

  • Peter Florianschütz, Member of the Vienna City Council
  • Hannes Swoboda, President, wiiw
  • Mario Holzner, Executive 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
  • Përparim Rama, Mayor Prishtina
  • Alexandra Schantl, Senior Expert, KDZ, Vienna
  • 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: The post-socialist cities from Central and Eastern Europe: Between spatial growth and demographic decline

  • Alexandra Sandu, Lecturer in Human Geography, Cardiff University

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
  • Jelena Janevska, Programme Director, Network of associations of local authorities of South-East Europe NALAS, Skopje
  • 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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