Due to COVID-19 restrictions, this year’s conference on Polish-German economic relations, hosted by the SGH Warsaw School of Economics in cooperation with the Konrad Adenauer Foundation, took place online on 7 and 8 October 2020. It focused on the subject “New challenges for the social market economy in Poland and Germany: transformations in the market economy and in digitalisation”.

Representatives from the worlds of business, politics and academia discussed the opportunities and risks arising from advances in digitalisation, as well as the associated challenges for the individual sectors of the German and Polish economies. Alongside a number of renowned university professors, contributors from Germany included the Director of the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition, Dietmar Harhoff, and the former Prime Minister of the Free State of Saxony, Georg Milbradt, who gave a talk on the subject “Non-market-compliant government intervention in Germany”, which stimulated a lively debate.

Presentation of university’s research findings

© Marcus Kaufhold

The Bundesbank’s University of Applied Sciences was represented by Lilli Zimmermann and recent graduate Sofia Semik, who, a few days earlier, had celebrated her graduation in Hachenburg with the second highest marks in her year group.

© Sofia Semik

At the session on macroeconomic and trade policy challenges, Professor Zimmermann and Ms Semik presented their research findings on the subject “Determinants of government debt reduction in central and eastern Europe.” Given the rise in government debt across the globe in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, this subject met with great interest and animated discussions.