Europe's Future Takes Center Stage in Presse am Sonntag's Bold Anniversary Edition
A Guest Editor-in-Chief Who Left Nothing Undone
As guest editor-in-chief for the anniversary edition of Presse am Sonntag, Andreas Treichl pulled out all the stops. The chairman of the Erste Foundation's supervisory board brimmed with ideas, pushed the team forward, wrote and conducted interviews himself, designed a questionnaire, shared his contacts—and even offered up his personal playlist. In short, he embraced his journalistic mission with infectious enthusiasm. The only thing the banking legend refused to do was sing—though rumor has it he actually can. For the Instagram promo video featuring his newspaper's special issue, he left Ode to Joy to the semi-professional editorial choir, with star baritone and Presse CEO Rainer Nowak lending the performance its necessary touch of irony. Treichl, meanwhile, preferred to deliver his lines in the closing credits.
Beethoven's hymn was no accident, of course. The anniversary edition, out this Sunday, is all about Europe—and Treichl assembled a stellar cast to match. He persuaded Maia Sandu, president of the Republic of Moldova, to stop by the Presse's video studio on Hainburger Straße during a layover on her return flight from Lithuania. He sat down via video call with Enrico Letta, the former Italian prime minister and author of the landmark report on the future of the single market. And in the middle of an editorial meeting, he casually dashed off an email to Andrej Babiš, the EU-skeptical Czech prime minister.
Planning for the special issue began back in January, during an initial meeting at the Erste Campus. From the start, Treichl had media professionals by his side—former trend journalist Martina Bachler and Christoph Prantner, a veteran editor of Der Standard and Neue Zürcher Zeitung. And, of course, the Presse team knows a thing or two as well. Few dared turn down the guest editor-in-chief's requests. Historian Anne Applebaum, political scientist Ivan Krastev, security expert Florence Gaub, and British MP Tom Tugendhat all answered his call, as did tech investor Hermann Hauser, Schwarz-Digits CEO Rolf Schumann, and the multitalented actor Michael Ostrowski.
Not everything, of course, is deadly serious—there's plenty of fun, too. German ad legend Jean-Rémy von Matt and Fritz Jergitsch, editor-in-chief of Tagespresse, helped keep things lively. For the cover, the team brought in graffiti artist Stefan Wogrin, with Treichl himself posing against a spray-painted wall by the Donaukanal—a bold move, even if the mural was legal. (During the shoot, amateur cyclists whizzed past him in both directions.) But as Treichl knows, Europe's future will take courage.
Stay tuned for Sunday!
