The finance ministers of the federal states met in Frankfurt am Main for a change. And for a very particular reason: this marked the 1,000th meeting of the Bundesrat’s Finance Committee. The venue was the same building where, on 25 and 26 September 1946, the “German Financial Council” convened for the first time: under the roof of what was to become the Bank deutscher Länder, the Bundesbank’s predecessor institution. At that time, the Finance Council’s members came from the British and American occupation zones. The building is now the seat of the Bundesbank’s Regional Office in Hesse. The meetings of the modern-day Finance Committee usually take place in the Bundesrat building in Berlin.

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel, First Deputy Governor Sabine Mauderer and Executive Board members Lutz Lienenkämper, Burkhard Balz, Michael Theurer and Fritzi Köhler-Geib welcomed the ministers to the Regional Office. In commemoration of this historic meeting, Mr Nagel noted that 1,000 was indeed a large number. “At that time, the Deutsche Mark had not yet been born, and probably nobody even dared dream of an ‘economic miracle’.” Since then, he added, the committee had seen many faces come and go and had covered many different topics. However, the Bundesbank’s Executive Board members did not attend the official meeting of the Finance Committee in Frankfurt.

The committee reflects the topics of the Federal Ministry of Finance, particularly the federal budget, budget law and the budgetary system, taxes and levies, financial relations between the Federation and the federal states, and national and international financial policy. The committee meets every four to six weeks. The meetings of the Bundesrat’s Finance Committee are generally attended by the political leaders of the state finance ministries.