Ladies and gentlemen,

On behalf of the Swiss government, it gives me great pleasure to open this year’s Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum here in Davos. For more than thirty years the Forum has brought together an impressive number of figures from the worlds of politics, business, and culture in the broadest sense, and from what has recently become known as civil society.

When we look back at the ideas that have characterised this period, Davos will stand out as an important place where themes, issues, draft solutions and sometimes even solutions have emerged. It will also not fail to be noted that the WEF was flexible to the point that while not integrating its dissenters, it at least made space for them at the parallel event of the Open Forum.

The Davos Forum 2008 is opening under a climate of economic uncertainty. Might the subprime loans crisis and the US housing market trigger in successive waves, a reduction in global economic growth, or even recession in certain regions?

For several years now we have seen with some satisfaction that progress in world economic growth was not based entirely on one sole motor, that of the US economy, but on several motors, particularly in Asia. I hope that this optimistic view of globalisation will be confirmed over the next few months.

Let us hope that Davos can contribute to a critical analysis of what has led to these difficulties. Let us hope that Davos can contribute to bringing about the prospect or resolve to prevent such excesses in the future.

This year’s meeting is dedicated to the theme of “The power of collaborative innovation”. It is sufficiently broad to not immediately spark controversy. It is sufficiently precise to be thought provoking.

The Swiss government has functioned since 1848 on the model of a directory or executive council; in other words, on the model of innovative collaboration. It is a unique case. I sometimes say with a smile that it is the only example of a successful soviet.

We welcome the choice of this year’s meeting, even if critical, and of course unfair observers, do not credit the Swiss government with the capacity for dynamic innovation. However, executive councils that work well do not have as their primary goal the floating or achievement of revolutionary visions. They aim instead for progress through continuity. They are more likely the product of a way of thinking inspired by Montesquieu than by the lyricism of Saint-Just and the revolutionaries. That does not prevent the results of executive councils that operate on the basis of innovative collaboration from being compared easily with those of other forms of government.

Of course this year’s theme covers far more than forms of government. You call for collaboration between people and between social and intellectual disciplines. And you are right. Each time a nation or the whole of the international community has sought to resolve a problem by isolating it from its context, failure has been inevitable. Or rather the solution to one problem led to others that were even more complex and difficult to resolve. Some see in this process an inevitability of human action. We do not believe that. It must be possible, perhaps by taking a little more time, to provide a differentiated response to complex problems.

In the field of the environment, we have no other choice. It is only through innovative collaboration between science, business and politics, integrating ethical considerations, that we will manage to find solutions. Again it is necessary in the course of these discussions, for all views to be heard, including those of the most critical and the least inclined to this kind of consensus before decisions are taken.

If the leaders of the great religious traditions call for peace and harmony, the reality of the matter is that we are not shielded from a conflict of civilisation. In order to avoid it, there is a need for interdisciplinarity. History and linguistics, theology and social analysis must be part of any effective dialogue. Intelligence alone is not enough. There must also be a desire for peace. But the desire for peace without real knowledge of the other party can rapidly end in disillusion and frustration.

Great spiritual traditions must also be open to the science that reflects our current view of reality. Science, for its part, knows that its vision of reality is that of today. Arrogance is not appropriate. In short, no one doubts the power of innovative collaboration.

And yet, as Blaise Pascal once said: “At the end of every truth, one must add what one remembers of the opposite truth”. In other words, the power of creative innovation does not release the individual from his responsibility. How many networks today serve to dilute responsibilities more than produce new ones with courage. It is perhaps one of the clearest lessons of the current financial crisis. We believed we knew how to spread the risk when instead we simply diluted the responsibility.

Worse still, networks serve to shelter terrorist or criminal activities. Their strength is to be capable of integrating, on the fringes of the organisation, naïve individuals or ‘useful idiots’ to use a term coined by a revolutionary from the past.

It is therefore time, while recalling the power of creative collaboration, to remind ourselves of the need for courage and individual responsibility. The media evolution has a tendency to favour those who try to blend into networks to escape their real responsibilities. They play on the mirror effect. They say: I’m like you, with my weaknesses and my faults. To criticise me is to criticise yourself. Public debate is distorted because it is no longer concerned by what is expected of a company director or a politician: that a person takes an informed decision and bears the consequences.

In this region at the turn of the 20th century, a thinker wrote a hymn to the standing man. The heritage of Nietzsche was then led astray, distorted by criminals, Nazis and others. And yet Nietzsche’s work, if well read and interpreted, is still relevant today. The power of creative innovation is also the capacity to hear a voice like that.

I hope you have a fascinating and fruitful Annual Meeting 2008.

Address by Pascal Couchepin President of the Swiss Confederation at the opening of the WEF Annual Meeting 2008