Visioconférence avec Rudolf Strohmeier et Stormy-Annika Mildner

The Aspen Institute France and EY had the honor to host Mr. Strohmeier and Mrs. Mildner for a Geopolitical Zoom focused on the future of Germany after the 2021 Federal Election.
Merkel leaving the office after 16 years marked the end of an era and represented a watershed for German, European and Western politics in general. The panelists joined us to share their insightful viewpoints on the fate of the Bundestag and on the possible coalitions that will lead Germany over the next 4 years.
Who will be able to pick up the considerable political legacy left by Merkel?
Will Germany outlive the woman who is considered « the most influential European politician of the 21st century »?
What will be the implications for the relationship with France and for the German posture in the EU? These and similar questions were addressed during the meeting.

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Rudolf W. Strohmeier has been the Director-General of the interinstitutional Publications Office of the EU since May 2016. From early 2010 he held the position of Deputy Director General for Research & Innovation at the European Commission, responsible for the Research Programs. In this capacity he was Commission representative in the Governing Boards of most EU Joint Technology Initiatives with different industrial sectors. He served as well as the European Co-Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Group for Earth Observation (GEO).

After studies of Law and Economics at the Universities of his hometown Würzburg and that of Bonn, he started his career in 1979 as teaching assistant at the Department of Civil and Commercial Law at the University of Würzburg. In 1980, he joined the Bavarian Liaison Office to the Federal Government in Bonn. Following a 2-years detachment to the Development Policy department of the European Commission, he established the Bavarian Information Office in Brussels and became its first Director.

He joined in 2003 the Cabinet of Commission President Prof. Romano Prodi as Adviser. His main achievements have been the successful steering of REACH proposal as well as that for the establishment of the European DefenCe Agency. From 2005-2010, he served as Head of Commissioner Viviane Reding’s 2. Cabinet (Telecommunication and Media). In this function he was instrumental for the adoption of the roaming regulation and the successful negotiations of the 2. Telecom package.

Rudolf Strohmeier is alumni of the German Marshall Fund of the US, founding member of the Belgian-Bavarian Society, member of the Scientific Society for Middle Classes (Munich), editor of two books and author of various articles dealing with European policies.

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Dr. Stormy-Annika Mildner was appointed as the new Executive Director of the Aspen Institute Germany in Berlin effective January 1, 2021. In January 2014, Dr. Stormy-Annika Mildner (M.Sc.) became head of the department « Foreign Economic Policy » at the Bundesverband der Deutschen Industrie (BDI), Federation of German Industries. Until December 2013, she was a member of the Executive Board of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), a policy-oriented think-tank based in Berlin. Her fields of interest include international trade and finance as well as commodity markets.
 
Before joining the SWP, she worked for the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP), where she headed the program « Globalization and the World Economy » (2000-2002). From 2005 to 2006, Ms. Mildner was a lecturer at the John F. Kennedy Institute of the Free University of Berlin. In spring 2010, she was a visiting fellow at the American Institute for Contemporary German Studies in Washington, where she is still a non-resident Senior Fellow. In fall 2011 she was a visiting fellow at the German Marshall Fund’s Transatlantic Academy in Washington. 

Ms. Mildner conducted her Bachelor studies in economics and North American studies at the Free University of Berlin and earned a Master of Science in international political economy from the London School of Economics (2000). She wrote her PhD thesis at the Free University of Berlin on the economic and political rationale of export credit finance in the United States. During her PhD studies, she attended the Yale Center for International and Area Studies (YCIAS) of Yale University (2002-2003).