Press Release

Published 28.01.2010 Author SEK-FEPS

Good housekeeping and fair play

FSPC President Thomas Wipf today opened the eighth Open Forum Davos and presented an FSPC working paper on the economic and financial crisis. "Switzerland – Misfit or Model?" was the theme of the first public panel discussion.

"The complex interconnecting facts, and what is right and just for all people, are both guiding principles of equal importance." With these words the President of the Council of the Federation of Swiss Protestant Churches, Pastor Thomas Wipf, opened the eighth Open Forum Davos today.

"Without appropriate competence and understanding of complex interrelations, theological and ethical interventions are no more than self-opinionated moralising", stressed Wipf in the hall of the Alpine Mittelschule in Davos, before a packed audience of over 420. "Without humane social and ethical principles, business becomes an egoists' playground."

The working paper "Sound housekeeping and fair play. A church view of the financial and economic crisis" is a special invitation from the FSPC to join the debate this year. The text under discussion represents a provisional analysis of the economic and financial crisis from economic, theological and ethical viewpoints. It links its analysis of the causes of the financial crisis to the question of a fair and sustainable world economic order and ethically responsible action. This text on the financial and economic crisis seeks to contribute the FSPC's positions and thoughts to the public debate. The paper is available for download at the website www.openforumdavos.ch.

In the first of the seven public panel discussions, Swiss TV host Stephan Klapproth engaged in discussion with the Speaker of the Swiss National Council, Pascale Bruderer, and others, about "Switzerland – Misfit or Model?" The second panel event, this evening, will discuss the consequences of the current economic and financial crisis.