Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen, accompanied by his wife Brigitte, arrived by train for a two-day visit to the Czech Republic, March 1, 2023, Hlavní nádraží, Prague. He will meet with President Miloš Zeman and other constitutional officials.
Prague – Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen arrived today to visit the Czech Republic. He arrived in Prague by train, his official program will begin on Thursday morning with a meeting with outgoing Czech President Miloš Zeman. He will also speak with other constitutional officials during the day.
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Van der Bellen will come to say goodbye to Zeman only a few days before the end of his presidential mandate. The Czech president announced that he would award him the highest state award, the Order of the White Lion.
During the day, Van der Bellen also plans to meet with the incoming president Petr Pavlo, he will also meet with Senate President Miloš Vystrčil and Prime Minister Petr Fiala (both ODS). He will talk to the Prime Minister of the Czech Republic about the continuation of aid to Ukraine or bilateral cooperation between the Czech Republic and Austria.
Van der Bellen has been at the head of Austria since January 2017, he was re-elected to the office last autumn. He met Zeman, for example, in June 2021 and April 2019 in Vienna or in June 2017 in Prague.
Hungarian President Katalina Nováková will also come to the Czech Republic on Friday to say goodbye to Zeman. Since the beginning of the year, the outgoing Czech president met Polish President Andrzej Duda in Náchod, and on his last foreign visit he was in Slovakia, where he held talks with Slovak President Zuzana Čaputová. He also said goodbye to Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic in Belgrade and spoke via video link with German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on Monday and Israeli President Isaac Herzog on Wednesday a week ago. Already in January, he connected with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
