“Euro rescuers handle huge financial risks without the necessary legal control”, said Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Brun-Hagen Hennerkes, Chairman of the Executive Board of the Foundation for Family Businesses. He referred to the immunity clauses of the permanent Euro rescue package ESM, according to which courts will no longer have access to personnel, assets and documents unless the committees of the rescue mechanism themselves allow it. “This is a black box and a legal vacuum, where the players have ensconced themselves largely unnoticed by the public. The German Bundestag must not agree to this evasion from responsibility”, Hennerkes demanded in today's "WELT" newspaper's Monetary Conference in Berlin.

“What every entrepreneur considers to be the standards of corporate management, is missing so far when it comes to solving the Euro crisis”, said Hennerkes. In addition to insufficient liability of the responsible parties, there is a  lack of the continuous supervision of the various reorganization measures, he noted and continued to criticize “The rescue package policy primarily buys us time. The real issues remain unresolved. And, what is worse, the rescue packages are mostly being used to serve the satisfaction of creditors outside of Greece, while they are choking off the economy in the country itself.”

Some 200 guests from the political, scientific and economic sectors have met today at the journalists' club of the Axel Springer building to participate in the “WELT" Monetary Conference. Among the speakers and discussants of the day were ECB Member of the Board Jörg Asmussen, Professor Dennis J. Snower, President of the Institute for World Economics in Kiel, Professor Dr. Jürgen Stark, a former ECB Member of the Board, as well as Dr. Peter Gauweiler, who recently sued against the Euro rescue package before the Federal Constitutional Court.

The conference is being held jointly by the Foundation for Family Businesses and the WELT Group for the second time. One year ago, the Foundation for Family Businesses published the much- acclaimed “Berlin Declaration on the Euro Crisis”, which was signed by 100 leading family businesses from all over Germany. The fears laid down in this declaration have come true, and the claims of the time have reached the center of the political debate. This also includes the demand for a reorganization of the monetary union, which makes Greece's withdrawal possible.

The Foundation for Family Businesses and the entrepreneurs who stand behind it have been committed to a long-term stability of the financial and economic policy since the outbreak of the debt crisis. Due to their long-term business policy, the family businesses are dependent on it in a special way. This sustainability has made them the basic foundation of the German economy. More than 95 percent of the companies are family businesses.


» Press release for download (german, PDF 214 KB)

For further information: Maria Krenek Public and Media Relations Stiftung Familienunternehmen Prinzregentenstraße 50 D-80538 Munich Tel.: +49 (0) 89 / 12 76 400 03 Fax: +49 (0) 89 / 12 76 400 09 krenek(at)familienunternehmen.de