50th anniversary Friedrich Naumann Foundation - Main contents
President Hans van Baalen MEP was key-note speaker at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom at the Royal Belgian Academy in Brussels. He participated in a row of lectures given by former German Federal Minister Irmgard Schwaetzer who is now on the Board of FNF, President of the European Investment Bank Werner Hoyer, LI Vice President Markus Löning who is Human Rights Commissioner of the German Government and Hans Stein, director of FNF Brussels.
Van Baalen made clear that FNF is vital for Liberal International and its regional organisations and for ALDE (both Group and Party) because FNF is present in all continents and has many country offices which are the eyes, ears and the arms of LI. Hans van Baalen also mentioned the constructive role FNF leaders such as the deceased LI and FNF Chairman Otto Graf Lambsdoff and current FNF Chairman Wolfgang Gerhardt played in the Bureau of LI. FNF is much more than an instrument for international co-operation, it is a network of like-minded liberal friends and colleagues. Two careers prove this.
Hans Stein who knows the world and who knows Brussels, is now a candidate for the German Bundestag elections coming September. Jules Maaten who started in local politics in The Netherlands, went from the IFLRY Presidency to LI as Secretary General and from the European Parliament in Brussels to Manila as director of FNF and now returns to Brussels to succeed Hans Stein.
With liberal careers is as in the song of Dame Vera Lynn: "We will meet again, don't know where, don't know when but we will meet again some sunny day!"