The digital industry tradeshow CeBIT opened its doors today in Hannover, Germany and will run until March 6.

Merkel congratulated the organisers of the show for maintaining its position as the largest event of its kind in Europe.

Merkel also used her speech as an opportunity to hold forth on the risks of new technology and its role in the financial crisis. “We have to understand risks and minimise them when using these new technologies. All these things that let us move closer together also lead to a situation - we have seen this with the financial crisis - where we are much more easily hurt,” she said. “We need rules for the global economy. We need stable currencies and on top of this we need a free and open global market not based on protectionism.”