Professor Wieland, you have something to announce.

What is it?

Johannes Pennekamp

Responsible editor for economic reporting, responsible for "The Lounge".

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I have decided to resign from my position on the Advisory Council with effect from the end of April.

That comes as a surprise.

You have been on the Council since 2013 and in less than a year, at the end of February 2023, your second term would end anyway.

Why this unusual step now?

This is not so unusual, in the history of the Council many members left before the end of the first or second term - for very different reasons.

It was always clear to me that I would not serve more than two terms and now is a good time.

The work on the council is very time-consuming, and that comes on top of my main work in research and teaching and as head of a university center in Frankfurt.

It is always a difficult balancing act between university work and the council.

Some things fall by the wayside.

And on a very personal level, the last two years during the Corona period with children of kindergarten and primary school age and relatives in need of care were a particular burden, also for the family.

In my opinion, we did a very good job under adverse circumstances.

But now, after 9 years as "Wirtschaftsweiser", you couldn't have said: Close your eyes and go through with it?

9 annual reports, 3 special reports, 3 productivity reports and 20 economic forecasts - I think I've done my part.

Two years of it in the pandemic, starting with the special report on the Corona crisis, which we delivered in March 2020 with only 3 council members working from home.

There was a lot of "eyes closed and through".

With our recently published economic forecast, we have also analyzed the current economic risks resulting from Russia's attack on Ukraine in more depth.

And we have linked this with an important common economic policy message, which we have presented to the public as well as to the Federal Chancellor and the Federal Ministers of Finance, Economics and Climate, Labor and Social Affairs and Health.

Germany should immediately pull out all the stops to end its dependence on energy imports from Russia.

Full commitment was required and, in my opinion, the result was an excellent joint product.

I'm proud of it and very happy about the joint success.

One should go when it is most beautiful.

It doesn't seem to have been so nice in the Council lately.

Since Lars Feld's departure more than a year ago, the committee has only four members, not the originally planned five.

There hasn't been a permanent chairman since then because there's a stalemate - with you and Veronika Grimm on the one hand and Monika Schnitzer and Achim Truger on the other.

Are you dropping out because the federal government found a fifth member from the more left-wing camp and you would have been in the minority position in the future?

no

I don't have any specific information about an upcoming replacement.

This is not a reason for my decision.

As far as the majority and minority are concerned, the Russian war of aggression has already shifted some important coordinates of our politics and society.

This could mean that some economists can no longer be assigned to well-established positions so easily, or that these positions lose importance.