OREANDA-NEWS. On 10 February, the previous European Commissioner for Transport and Mobility and current visiting professor of the University of Tartu Siim Kallas started his special course on international finance at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the University of Tartu.

131 students have registered for the course of Siim Kallas, visiting professor of the Chair of Public Economics and Policy of the University of Tartu. “These are mostly students of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, but there are also students from the Faculty of Law, Institute of Social Studies, Institute of Physics and elsewhere,” said the Vice Dean for Academic Affairs of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration Krista Jaakson, illustrating the students’ keen interest in Kallas’ course.

The objective of Siim Kallas’ course is to introduce the history of money and finance in conjunction with contemporary problems from the public and private sector perspectives. The course focuses on the developments of monetary and budgetary policy and banking primarily in the context of the European Union.

In more detail, Kallas will discuss the way the need for euro as the single currency for developing the internal market arose, including the preceding exchange rate conflicts between the member states. The course will also deal with the states’ budgetary policy throughout the years, the establishment and development of the International Monetary Fund, the creation of central banks and the current developments in the supervision of European banks. The course will also have a look into the prevention, solution and consequences of banking crises, among many other topics.

“It is clearly not a full-time professorship, but my visiting professor’s position gets a bit more substance. I have had the right to use the title of a visiting professor of the University of Tartu for some time, but I have not done that, as my participation in teaching has been merely symbolic. But now I will really go to Tartu and take up teaching,” said Siim Kallas in October 2014 in an interview to Delfi.

In the past, the alumnus of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of the University of Tartu Siim Kallas has been the visiting professor of business administration and given popular alumni lectures. The Chair of Public Economics and Policy is planning to continue cooperation with the visiting professor at least until 2018.