The Warwick Commission on International Financial Reform met for the second time in Berlin in March at a meeting kindly hosted by Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (The German Institute for International and Security Affairs). This was the first time the full Commission team had met in person - the first meeting in January was attended by a sub-group who outlined the general lines of enquiry for this meeting in Berlin.

Professor Len Seabrooke, Director of Studies for the Commission said: “We have had a fairly intense and exciting couple of days working on the key themes for our report. Not one of our Commissioners has taken a back seat in this process and all are eager to be involved and ask the difficult questions.

“It’s been an incredibly productive two days of discussion and debate and has taken in a wide range of global and national financial issues from segmentation and boom-bust through to right-sizing, the role of the IMF and regulatory reform to name but a few topics. I think that we have identified the key issues which will be the focus of our report and we’re looking forward to the collaborative writing process which forms the next stage of this project.”

The Commission next meets in Ottawa at CIGI (The Centre for International Governance Innovation) in early June. Before that meeting Commissioners will be interviewing leading practitioners, policy makers and researchers across the globe on the themes for the report and will begin the task of writing up their recommendations.

In addition to the interviews the Commissioners will be undertaking, there will shortly be an interactive forum on the website for comment on some of the themes the Commission is considering.