Date: Wednesday 9 December 2009
Time: 1-2pm
Venue: Old Theatre, Old Building
Speakers: Quentin Peel, George Soros, Guy Verhofstadt
Chair: Professor Mary Kaldor

This public discussion marks the publication of Guy Verhofstadt's latest book The Financial Crisis: How Europe can Save the World.

George Soros is Chairman of Soros Fund Management, LLC. He was born in Budapest in 1930. He survived the Nazi occupation and fled communist Hungary in 1947 for England, where he graduated from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He then settled in the United States, where he accumulated a large fortune through an international investment fund he founded and managed. Mr Soros has been active as a philanthropist since 1979, when he began providing funds to help black students attend Capetown University in apartheid South Africa. He has established a network of philanthropic organisations active in more than 50 countries around the world. These organisations are dedicated to promoting the values of democracy and an open society. The foundation network spends about $400 million annually. Mr Soros is the author of ten books. His articles and essays on politics, society, and economics regularly appear in major newspapers and magazines around the world.

Guy Verhofstadt is leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe group of MEP's in the European Parliament, having himself been elected to the parliament in June 2009. Prior to this he served as Prime Minister of Belgium heading three separate governments from 1999. In 1972, he became President of the Liberal Flemish Students' Union in Ghent and, four years later, was elected as a City Councillor there. Keen to follow his interest in national politics, Guy went on to take a number of high profile posts including Political Secretary to Willy De Clercq, National President of the Party for Freedom and Progress (PVV), an MP in the House of Representatives, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for the Budget, a Senator, and National President of the PVV and National President of the Flemish Liberals and Democrats (VLD). In addition to his duties as a politician, Guy has written a number of books including, The United States of Europe (2006), The New Age of Empires (2008) and most recently The Financial Crisis: How Europe can Save the World (2009).

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Slides

A copy of Guy Verhofstadt's PowerPoint presentation is now available online:

Download The Financial Crisis: How Europe can save the world

Podcast

A podcast of this event is available to download from the LSE Public Lectures and Events: podcasts and videos channel.

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