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President Trichet, Ladies and Gentlemen,
It gives me great pleasure to welcome you all here today to the official opening of the International Centre for Corporate Culture and History. Our Centre here in Frankfurt is composed of 3 organisations: the European Association for Banking and Financial History (EABH), Frankfurter Kultur Komitee and the Institute for Corporate Culture Affairs (ICCA). On the regional level – Frankfurter Kultur Komitee is the first address in the Rhein Main region for debate over the cultural, social and political development of Germany’s most diverse multicultural region. EABH is, under the leadership of President Trichet, the premier European banking history organisation. While, ICCA is Germany’s first international globalisation and CSR think tank whose Forum is composed of opinion formers from business, politics and academia.
In a way though, all 3 organisations share the same goals:
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Supporting companies to full fill their social and political responsibilities in this age of evolving globalisation
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Promoting the idea that culture is more than sponsoring, indeed it is a vital factor in business’ location - Der Standort - both for many companies, as well as their workers
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Supporting business to guarantee minimum standards in the countries within which they operate. It is indeed companies themselves which can have a tremendous influence in ensuring that respect for human rights, democratic principles and the safeguarding of a free competitive economy are achieved. It is also vital that companies ensure that they respect the culture of the societies within which they operate
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Ensuring that archives and other cultural assets are protected - that a “monopolisation of knowledge” does not take place and that access is free to all
This last point is a subject that is - as many of you know - close to my heart. Our common cultural memory can not be reduced to a disposable object, nor should it be able to be bought up by a single company. The use of our cultural memory through such assets and treasures as archives, whether from Banks, companies or other organisations must remain accessible and free of charge to all. Many of you are aware of the large number of mergers and takeovers over the last few years. In most cases such business leads to greater efficiency. What is less well known is that after takeovers, many companies lose invaluable resources. Archives are closed, assets disposed off - or worse - even destroyed. Perhaps as dangerous, companies such as Microsoft or Google have announced plans to undertake the complete digitalisation of records, data, archives or pictures. While the process of digitalisation is to be welcomed, one must be careful to ensure that a “monopolisation of knowledge or cultural assets” does not take place.
The destruction of our cultural memory - or the monopolisation of knowledge or cultural assets would be catastrophic for all of us, as, I’m sure you will agree, Corporate Culture and Corporate History are of vital importance in the business and identity of global companies. A project of vital importance that EABH and ICCA are now engaged on, is establishing a “task force” to ensure that before, during and after mergers and takeovers all cultural assets are appraised and protected. It is in this context that we very much hope that a dialogue takes place over the responsibility of those charged with protecting and supporting our common cultural memory. As a first step in this dialogue, I am delighted that we have President Trichet of the ECB, Prof. Segreto from Florence University and Dr. Bender of Fraport AG here today, and I would now like to hand over to Dr. Lutz Raettig chairman of the Supervisory Board of Morgan Stanley AG and member of the Frankfurt Government.
Closing words
Many, many thanks President Trichet, Dr Bender, Prof Segreto, Lutz Rättig, Roland Tichy and David Marsh for this short, but extremely stimulating discussion. I very much hope that today’s dialogue is just the start. I hope you will all continue this discussion over some drinks here at our offices. But, before I close, I would also like to draw your attention to the art work kindly provided by two artists from Frankfurt - Eva Schwab and Sandip Shah - artists in residence at Atelier Frankfurt.
Thank you very much for attending……
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