Foreword

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Foreword

With the present publication, the Future Commission, set up by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation two-and-a-half years ago, submits its findings to the public.

When the Commission first met on 24 October 1995, I expressed the hope of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation that the Commission would develop approaches to the reform of society that would point far into the future. The Commission should leave behind well-trodden paths of thinking about societal reform and should not feel unduly restricted by apparent limits to political action. Such a forward-looking reform project is consistent with the objectives of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, which sees itself as an institution whose involvement in academic policy advice, political education and international co-operation reaches beyond a short-term horizon and extends across the boundaries of particular groups and political parties. The Foundation wante to stimulate ideas for societal problem-solving that can stand the test of time and provide positive impulses for society as a whole.

This report fully meets both my personal expectations and those of the .Friedrich Ebert Foundation. The Commission does not only provide analyses and new interpretations of existing and anticipated societal problems; it has also been able to integrate its diverse individual findings in a manner that has allowed it to formulate concrete political options and proposals for an economically, socially and ecologically balanced path into the future.

Of course, the publication of this report does not mark the end of the discussion process. Rather, the report's analyses and proposals invite further discussions both within the Foundation and with other groups in society. The Friedrich Ebert Foundation sees this report as an opportunity and a longer-term challenge to direct its own activities in political education and academic policy advice towards the reforms outlined by the Commission.

My particular thanks go to the members of the Commission, who, with great commitment and hard work, have succeeded in developing corner-

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stones of a new 'German model'. I should also like to thank the staff of the Commission's Academic Secretariat for the constructive support they have provided to the Commission.

Holger Börner
President of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation
Bonn, March 1998