German Mayors for Peace Conference
October 12, 2007
On Friday the 12 the German members of the Mayors for Peace held their third annual national conference in Hannover.
German Mayors in Hannover City Hall during Annual Conference
The Mayor of the German Executive City Hanover invited all German members to attend the meeting held at the new city hall of Hanover.At 1 pm mayors from all over Germany came together in the historical City Hall to exchange their experiences about mayors for peace and their local activities.The Agenda of the Conference had a wide variety, as beside of the reports of the mayors there were also some NGO, and Scientist presentations.
After the welcoming speech by Hanover’s new Lord Mayor Stephan Weil there were video greetings from the President of Mayors for Peace, Mr. Akiba Tadatoshi. In his video address he called upon all member cities to support the campaign more actively. The Mayor of Hiroshima also pointed out that the City of Hiroshima is spending 6,5 million euro annually for its peace promotion program, including € 250,000/year for the Mayors for Peace.
To give the Mayors an idea of the international 2020 Vision Campaign office work,Pol D’Huyvetter, gave a short report on the future capacity building plans for the Campaign, outlining following three main issues: Membership development, Fundraising and Communication. Concerning membership development he pointed out that the Mayors for Peace will continue to recruit new members while at the same time deepening the engagement of the members. He also called German cities to commit themselves to give financial support to the campaign and gave the example of the pilot-project in Belgium where nearly 40 cities have already committed funds for the 2020 Vision campaign up to 2010 through city council resolutions. For communications Mayors for Peace should get its message in mainstrzam media while already taking action themselves by putting campaign banners on their website and putting a Mayors for Peace membership plaque at the entrance of the City Hall.Beside the report of Mayor Weil on his experiences during his first year as Vice-President of Mayors for Peace, in which he outlined the importance of the Mayors for Peace Project for the City of Hanover, Regina Hagen member of INESAP introduced the new “Unsere Zukunft, atomwaffenfrei” – our future, nuclear weapon free – campaign, which is conducted by the “Traegerkreis Atomwaffen Abschaffen”, the German Abolition 2000 network, with the aim to remove the 20 remaining Nuclear Warheads form German soil till 2010.
Very important input came from Otfried Nassauer from BITS (Berlin Information centre for Transatlantic Security) who outlined the actual nuclear potential of Germany.For Nassauer it seems very likely that we will see a nuclear weapon free Germany in the next years, as they will become useless with the replacement of the Tornado jets by Eurofighters in 2012.
To mark the position of the Social Democrat Party the parliamentary Co-Leader of the SPD (Social Democrats) Mr. Walter Kolbow underlined the statement of his party by saying that nuclear abolition has to be top priority for Germany and that Germany should try to get rid of his nuclear sharing as soon as possible. Indicating the importance to do so he however stated that Germany couldn’t make this step, unless the NATO Nuclear Planning Group agrees on it.
In the end the assembled Mayors unanimously agreed to pass a final declaration, calling upon the german governement to remove all nuclear weapons from Germany and to stop collaboration in the planning or use of nuclear weapons within NATO.
