< /p> Illustration photo – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Berlin – German Chancellor Olaf Scholz will meet Czech President Petr Pavl during his visit to Berlin next week on Tuesday. German government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit told journalists today. Pavel will also meet with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his predecessor Joachim Gauck. The Czech president chose Germany after Slovakia and Poland as the third country he will visit after taking office. He said today that he does not expect controversial topics during his visit to Germany.
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Photo gallery: President Petr Pavel
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“The topics will be the security situation with regard to Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, but also international, European and bilateral issues,” said Hebestreit. He noted that there will be no press conference after Pavel's meeting with Scholz, as it is just a normal meeting between the president and the chancellor.
Pavel will arrive in Germany on Monday, March 20, but the official program awaits him only on Tuesday. In the morning, he will meet with Federal President Steinmeier at his residence in Berlin's Bellevue Castle. Here, Steinmeier welcomes Pavel with military honors. According to the office of the federal president, after the meeting, both heads of state will appear before journalists.
Today, Pavel told Czech journalists before his departure from a two-day official visit to Poland that he would like to use his trip to Germany to reset relations between the presidents of the two countries. “I think that with each new president it is necessary to establish personal relationships again,” said Pavel. Since the negotiations with his German counterpart, Steinmeier, he promises to be open, although according to him, it probably won't be “as accommodating” as in Poland. “After all, only Germany is in a different role. But I do not expect that there would be any controversial topic. On the contrary, from the signals I had, there is also a positive expectation on the part of Germany,” added the Czech president.
On Tuesday, Pavel will also visit the Berlin Wall Memorial, meet compatriots and experts from the opposition conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) on foreign and security policy, and will hold talks with former federal president Gauck at the Czech embassy. The German Association for Foreign Policy (DGAP) also invited the new Czech president to join them.
“With his early visit to Berlin at the very beginning of his mandate, Pavel is sending a completely positive signal,” CDU deputy Knut Abraham said today. “Prague and Berlin have a very similar view of the complex situation in Europe, which is affected by Russia's war against Ukraine,” he said in a statement. He noted that he appreciates Pavlo's interest in cross-border cooperation, including at the regional level. “The federal government should welcome the Czech president with open arms,” he added.
Abraham will be in Prague from Monday next week, where he is going with a delegation of deputies from Saxony, Thuringia, Saxony-Anhalt and Hesse. Together with the Czech Republic, Abraham supports the improvement of year-round navigability of the Elbe, as he represents one of the Polabian regions in Brandenburg in the Bundestag.
Pavel will go to Germany again in May, when he promised Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder a meeting in Selb as part of the Bavarian – Czech celebrations. On the occasion of the Bavarian-Czech friendship weeks, they will last 12 weeks from May 19 to August 6. The event is held as a symbol of the successes of the cross-border development of the regions of Bavaria and the Czech Republic to date, cultural events are planned on both sides of the border.
Pavel visited Bavaria in February shortly after his election, when he attended the Munich Security Conference in Munich. On the sidelines, he met, among others, French President Emmanuel Macron and also Söder. The Bavarian prime minister asked for a meeting with Pavel.
