Davos: five-star talking shop opens for business

As the great and the good arrive in the postcard pretty Swiss mountain resort of Davos for the World Economic Forum, scepticism is rife and many believe such five-star talking shops contribute nothing. This year’s official title is “resilient dynamism” Lee Howell is the Managing Director of the World Economic Forum: “The resilience piece is really the fact that in an interdependent world there’s going to be future shocks and that you really have to be able to bounce back rather than try to anticipate or predict them, the dynamism side is really about the fact that you have to take some risks to get to a better future. It’s a combination of being aware of the risks but at the same time taking some bold action. That’s what the theme is this year.” Politicans and business leaders are in town looking for some kind of light at the end of the tunnel, particularly the Europeans. The EU has suffered a severe buffeting in recent times and the year ahead promises more of the same. Euronews correspondant in Davos is Isabelle Kumar. She says the resort is covered in a blanket of snow and security: “With some fifty heads of state and government expected in all, security is a serious affair. Weather permitting jets will fly overhead, snipers will be positioned on rooftops and armed police patrol the streets.”