PRESS RELEASE
Russian and German Industrialists’ Meeting: ‘We Need Cool Heads To Stop a Political Tsunami’
DRESDEN, April 2, 2014 (EIRNS)—The Raw Materials Forum congress of the German and Russian industry which was held in Dresden today, sent out a strong "no" to a policy of sanctions and confrontation against the Russians. None of the speakers from either country, including several CEOs of leading industrial companies, said a single word of sympathy or support to the European Union or the German government, and in discussions on the sidelines of the event with representatives of the mittelstand and of institutions, not a single anti-Russian remark was made.
"Cooperation instead of confrontation"—that is what also senior representatives of the German political establishment, like Edmund Stoiber (Christian Social Union) and Klaus Toepfer (Christian Democratic Union), declared during their statements at the various panels of the event. Arkadi Dvorkovich, vice premier of Russia, said that this Dresden event was highly important, because it took place "in a tempest... which some people would like to turn into a tsunami," and that people "with a cool head" were needed to stop those intents.
Several presentations stressed that there has been strong cooperation between Russia and Germany over more than 300 years, highlighted by cooperation between the two oldest mining academies of the world—the one in Freiberg and the one in St. Petersburg. Direct cooperation between both countries was initiated by Peter the Great, who stayed at Freiberg in 1697 and invited Saxonian mining engineers to Russia, to lay the foundations for mining in the Urals.
