Senior German official to speak on transatlantic relations

Karsten Voigt, coordinator for German-American Cooperation in the Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, and a senior member of the German parliament, will speak at the University of Wisconsin–Madison on Friday, Oct. 6.

Voigt will speak on “The United States and Germany: Working Together to Meet the Challenges in the Greater Middle East” in 1100 Grainger Hall, 975 University Ave., at 3 p.m.

His talk, sponsored by the American Council on Germany’s Wisconsin Eric M. Warburg Chapter, and the UW–Madison’s Center for German and European Studies and European Union Center of Excellence, is free and open to the public.

Voigt has been a member of the German Bundestag since 1976 and has held many different positions within both the Bundestag and the German Social Democratic Party (SPD), most notably as foreign policy spokesman for the SPD from 1983-1998 and as a member of its executive committee from 1984-1995. He is a member of numerous boards and organizations, among them the German Society of Foreign Affairs, and Atlantik-Brücke.