FRANKFURT (Dow Jones)–The economist Volker Wieland is resigning from the Council of Economic Experts. “I have decided to resign my office in the Council of Experts with effect from the end of April,” Wieland told the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ/Saturday edition). Wieland’s withdrawal from the council of so-called economic experts came as a surprise. The monetary policy expert has been a member of the committee since 2013, and a second term of office was scheduled to expire at the end of February 2023.
As a reason for his resignation, the economist cited the high workload in the council, which was no longer compatible with his main job at the University of Frankfurt. “The work on the council is very time-consuming, and that’s on top of my main work in research and teaching and as head of a university center in Frankfurt,” said Wieland. Some things fall by the wayside. “And personally, 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”.
Wieland also called for changes. “The Council needs to move away from the focus on its annual report. Everyone puts a lot of work and analytical power into the report, which is often 500 pages long. But that’s inefficient. You can’t do all of that in the one-hour press conference at which the report is presented , explain. Only a small part is disseminated in the media. Even politicians cannot process the mass of the issues so quickly. I made two attempts internally to propose a different way of working, but unfortunately did not find a majority for it,” said the economist .
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April 09, 2022 05:37 ET (09:37 GMT)