We are looking forward to seeing many of you at this first annual WiSoAlumni meeting! The meeting began with a casual welcoming in the foyer of the WiSo faculty in front of Lecture Hall I. After the warm welcome of Professor Mellis, Dean of the WiSo Faculty, a podium discussion on the topic "Future of Europe: The political and economic development of the EU" followed.

Participants of the discussion were Dr. Yvonne Nasshoven (Alumna and speaker at the Office of State Secretaries in the Federal Foreign Office), Dr. Carsten Pillath (Alumnus and Director-General of the General Secretary of the Council of the European Union) and Dr. Werner Hoyer (Alumnus and President of the European Investment Bank).

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Wessels (Alumnus and holder of the Jean Monet Chair at CETEUS and European questions of the WiSo Faculty of the UzK) and Prof. Dr. Matthias Sutter (Professor of Experimental Economic Research at the WiSo Faculty of the UzK and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Community Goods Research) took part in the WiSo conference.

Ulric Papendick, Alumnus and head of the Cologne School of Journalism, moderated the podium discussion.

Wolfgang Wessels said in the discussion that the EU is overstretched and overwhelmed by the deepening and enlargement. Werner Hoyer took the view that youth unemployment in Spain is a structural national problem and that not everything that goes wrong in the EU could be attributed to the failure of the system.

"No matter how horrible the Brexit is, it gives us the opportunity to think about what we want in the future," says Carsten Pillath, who also drew attention to possible opportunities: "The Brexit has opened a small window to consider what we want in the future.

The podium discussions were also attended by the audience members with their opinions and questions on the topic, thus contributing to an exciting and lively discussion. We would like to thank all participants of the Alumni Annual Meeting 2017 once again for a nice evening and we are looking forward to the next annual meeting next year, in which hopefully just as exciting discussions will take place!

The annual meeting took place in cooperation with KölnAlumni - The Network of the University of Cologne. #WiSoAlumni #KölnAlumni

The pictures of the evening can be found here.

More events for WiSo-Alumni can be found on our website in the WiSoAlumni section.

Here are some impressions from the annual meeting 2017 of the alumni of the WiSo faculty:

Photos: Dustin Preick