29-06-2014 - Konzertsonntag mit prominenten Gästen

Auf den 14 Bildern ist er nur zweimal nicht zu sehen, es muss sich folglich um einen besonderen Gast gehandelt haben: Auf Einladung von Dr. Theo Waigel war der Präsident der Europäischen Zentralbank - Mario Drahgi - zu einem Besuch nach Ottobeuren gekommen.

Der Besuch galt zwar in erster Linie den Ottobeurer Konzerten (Marek Janowski dirigierte das Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchesters Berlin mit Bruckners achter Sinfonie), auf Einladung der Abtei kam eine größere Gruppe von Gästen aus Politik, Medien und Wirtschaft vorab jedoch zu einem Empfang im Kloster zusammen. Es waren insgesamt 41 Personen, die im Gästerefektorium der Abtei zu einem Stehempfang geladen waren. Als lokale Spezialität gab es Tatar von der Ottobeurer Räucherforelle.
Für das Renommée Ottobeurens sind solche informellen Begegnungen wichtig, denn es werden Kontakte geknüpft und wir finden Einzug in den bundesdeutschen Blätterwald. Am 30.06. berichteten die Augsburger Allgemeine kurz sowie die Südwestpresse, am 01.07. auch der Münchner Merkur und die Oberbayerische Volkszeitung, nicht jedoch die Süddeutsche Zeitung, am 01.07. erschien darüber hinaus ein ausführlicher Bericht im Lokalteil der Memminger Zeitung.

Bürgermeister German Fries zog - zum zweiten Mal in seiner Amtszeit - die große goldene Amtskette an und begrüßte auf Englisch. Mario Draghi („Super Mario“) trug sich anschließend ins Goldene Buch der Marktgemeinde ein, ebenso Bundesfinanzminister a.D. Dr. Theo Waigel, („Mister Euro“), auf dessen Initiative die Gruppe zusammenkam. Dr. Waigel ist ein regelmäßiger Besucher unserer Konzerte. In seiner Begrüßung verriet Abt Johannes Schaber, dass es heuer schon seine vierte Begegnung mit ihm wäre. Dr. Waigel überbrachte Grüße von Ministerpräsident Horst Seehofer und Finanzminister Dr. Markus Söder, „nicht aber von Peter Gauweiler“ - eine Anspielung auf dessen Klage gegen den Euro-Rettungsschirm und vor allem seine am 11.04.2014 geäußerte Kritik an der Europäischen Zentralbank und dem „Europäischen Stabilitätsmechanismus“ (ESM). 

Auch der Präsident hielt eine längere Rede, in der er auf die Kriterien für einen stabilen Euro einging. Die Aufweichung der Stabilitätskriterien nannte er einen großen Fehler. Er nahm die Bundesrepublik außerdem vor Kritik an einem zu starken Deutschland in Schutz, denn diese Stärke schütze die Stabilität des gesamten Wirtschaftsraumes und diene so letztlich allen (Auszüge siehe unten). Die der EZB vorgeworfene Niedrigzinspolitik und die damit verbundene Enteignung der Sparer sei kein Verschulden der Bank, sondern würde von der wirtschaftlichen Stärke Deutschlands verursacht, vor allem durch den damit in Verbindung stehenden Kapitalzufluss aus dem Ausland.

Zu Beginn seines Beitrages äußerte Herr Draghi (* 03.09.1947) den Wunsch, die Klosteranlage besichtigen zu können, was Abt Johannes sofort aufgriff und eine Privatführung anbot. Die ersten Bilder zeigen die kleine Führungsgruppe mit Dr. Theo Waigel, Gattin Dr. Irene Epple-Waigel und Sohn Konstantin, verschiedene Persönlichkeiten aus dem öffentlichen Leben, Mario Draghi beim Eintrag ins Goldene Buch und das Unternehmerehepaar Edith und Alois Berger - beide Ehrenbürger der Marktgemeinde.

Das Konzert wurde vom Deutschlandfunk live übertragen.
Bilder und Text: Helmut Scharpf

Auszüge aus der Rede Draghis

Father Johannes, Theo (Waigel), Lord Mayor, all friends,

I have many reasons to be grateful for this invitation today. The first is that - again - another extraordinary surprise from the little I’ve seen of this incredibly beautiful place - and I hope I have a little time after the concert to have a brief tour because just what I see here is memorable. It’s also the religious devotion that comes out of the things I saw before. Also for the concert that you (Theo Waigel) announced will be splendid. (…) The opportunity to be with you this Sunday afternoon in this place is by itself something that will stay in my memory. (…)

You certainly know, but the things that were discussed in the last European Council last Friday had actually been created by Dr. Waigel. The stability and growth pact was invented and drafted by Theo Waigel. And today it does represent the most meaningful contribution to Europe in the budgetary and economic area. This part has been relaxed and redrafted in some parts in the early 2000s. It was not a wise decision. We cannot say it was the first reason for the crisis, but certainly - thanks to that redrafting - many countries entered into the financial crisis with a level of debt so high that the budget could not be used for coping with the crisis. And now we have a much higher debt than if we had kept the pact unchanged. And I have reminded all the leaders about this.
Fortunately the final decision is one where basically the flexibility of the pact remains what was in the redrafting of the pact. As I said, it was not a wise decision, but certainly would have been much worse if we’d had to widen further the flexibility within the pact. I don’t think that accommodating for the national circumstances in the budgetary area helps us to move towards a closer Europe. We move to a closer Europe with trust and respect of the rules. That’s where credibility is - and trust comes from credibility. Now I think - I should say - that this message has by and large been understood by the majority of the European leaders - even this young leader in Italy understands this. By the way: How much press is here?

Waigel: Very many: Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung, Süddeutsche, Münchner Merkur, the most important ones are there!

Draghi: Let me basically say just one thing on which I will come back in a minute: The need for structural reforms is now well understood by everybody. Even - as I was about to say - by the new Italian leader who has made structural reforms a part of his policy. But let me come to less delicate, to less touchy issues than the Italian ones: rather the European ones. We are now in a situation that we have a slow recovery that is too slow. And an inflation that is too low. And the monetary policy basically responds to these two problems. The ECB monetary policy has one mandate: price stability. I want to remind (you) about one thing people seem to forget all the time: Monetary policy cannot resolve all the problems of the world. In particular it cannot replace action towards structural reforms by politicians in their governments. And monetary policy on the other hand cannot guarantee a way to return for the savings. This is a big problem. In the last press conference I was asked about the situation that many savers are facing today. Especially because there was a statement by the president of a banking association saying that we were expropriating the savers - thanks to our low interest rates.
First of all I responded that it’s not our short term rates (that are responsible). In the last two years we’ve lost much influence in changing the long term rates of the savers. Then why are the interest rates so low? Because thanks to its credibility, its structural reforms, its competitiveness and thanks also to its social fairness that you have in your industrial relations, Germany has become a safe haven, a model. And therefore money comes from all over the world into Germany and keeps interest rates unreasonably low. But that’s not something the ECB can do about. The ECB has a mandate for price stability. Due to low inflation we are bound to keep interest rates low for a long time. So that’s why we decided, in the last policy meeting, to lower interest rates and to even have a negative rate (of the deposit for safety?). We decided that the banks would get some cheap funding for a long time, provided that they lend to the real economy. All the main measures that we’ve taken over the last 2 ½ years, the LTRO, the OMT - I’m sorry for these acronyms - they are all expansionary measures to cope with the situation of low inflation. They were only dictated by price stability! There were no national considerations in taking these measures. They were in compliance with our mandate. However, what happened was that all of this money we put into the system has been repaid. And nothing has happened. The problem was that this money didn’t actually immediately (directly) go into the real economy. All the financial conditions improved enormously. Now there is confidence. We are very far away of the very serious situation of 2011, but still we are lacking financing the real economy. The large corporates don’t have any problems. It’s the small and medium sized enterprises that depend on the banks. In our part of the world banks are most important: 80% of total credits are intermediated by the banking system. In the United States it’s only 30%. That’s why we decided those measures targeting the banking system in the last meeting. (…)

Aktualisierung 2019: Mario Draghi übergab am 28.10.2019 sein Amt symbolisch an seine Nachfolgerin, Christine Lagarde. Draghis Amtsperiode als EZB-Präsident gebann 2011 begann und endet offiziell zum 31.10.2019.
Und 2021: Am 13.02.2021, um 12 Uhr, wurde Mario Draghi als italienischer Minsterpräsident vereidigt.

Hier geht es zum Konzertsonntag 1951.