Wednesday, January 21, 2015

Prince Hans-Adam, His Brother, the Economy and the Nation State

...or possibly what seems like our longest blog title ever, but anyway: As recently reported about, Prince Hans-Adam was in Klosters, Switzerland, to give a talk about his book "The State in the Third Millenium". The book, which has been translated into a variety of languages, deals with the modern nation-state and the question of how to make a traditional democratic constitutional state both more democratic and more efficient. As it turns out now, 1 FL TV was in Klosters as well and filmed Prince Hans-Adam's speech. It was shown in two parts yesterday and today; they can be viewed here and here.

In addition, Prince Hans-Adam also talked to 1 FL TV about a planned city train between Austria and Switzerland that will also lead through Liechtenstein. It is a much debated topic in the Principality. The Prince does not say whether he is in favour of the new train line or not but he hopes that it will be profitable for the country and bring an easing in terms of traffic.

It also seems like Prince Hans-Adam (surprise, surprise) isn't the only one in the Princely Family who has an opinion on the recent decision by the Swiss National Bank (SNB) to abandon its currency ceiling of 1.2 Swiss francs per euro. While his cousin Prince Michael thinks that "it would have been irresponsible to continue the currency purchase programme" (more here), his brother Prince Philipp points out that the move might damage Liechtenstein's economy (more here). (FYI, the Principality has been in a monetary union with Switzerland since 1924.)

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