On November 4, 2009, in the National Assembly of Korea a seminar on the perspectives of peaceful development of the Korean Peninsula 20 years after the peaceful revolution in East Germany took place. Among the presenters of the conference, which had been organized by the Maebong Institute for One Korea as well as Hon. Kwon Young-Sae, member of the Korean National Assembly and chairman of the Korean-German Parliamentary Group, were Dr. Bernhard Seliger, representative of Hanns-Seidel-Foundation in Korea, as well as the well-known Norwegian peace researcher Johan Galtung and Prof. Sung-Jo Park, retired professor of Free University Berlin and currently professor at Dong-A University, Busan.

The topic of Dr. Seliger’s presentation was the cost of unification. Costs in Germany were high, but in the last 20 years the formerly devastated industry and environment of East Germany has completely been overhauled. Rather than the costs in general, the high share of consumptive transfers has been economically problematic, as a result of the fear of mass migration to the West. Prof. Galtung in his presentation discussed the stability of North Korea’s political system and Prof . Park discussed the activities of European NGO in North Korea.

Presenters of the Seminar; first row (sitting), Prof. Johan Galtung (2nd from left), Prof. Sung-Jo Park (3rd from left), Dr. Seliger, (4th from left), second row in the middle: Hon. Young-Se Kwon (Chairman, Korean-German Parliamentary Group, National Assembly)

participants of the seminar in the National Assembly