The Diplomat
The King and Queen of Spain offered yesterday, at the Spanish Embassy in Berlin, a reception to the representatives of the almost 190,000 Spaniards living in Germany, at the beginning of a three-day state visit at the invitation of the President of the Federal Republic, Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Philip VI and Letizia are making the first state visit of a King and Queen of Spain to Germany in 36 years, coinciding with a particularly active moment in terms of bilateral relations. In early October, the President of the Government, Pedro Sánchez, and the German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, chaired in A Coruña the XXV Spanish-German Summit, the first since 2013. Apart from that, Sánchez paid an official visit to Berlin last week.
King Philip and Queen Letizia are traveling accompanied by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares; the Minister of Industry, Trade and Tourism, Reyes Maroto; and the Minister of Culture and Sport, Miquel Iceta, who will join the entourage in Frankfurt.
In his first act at the Spanish Embassy in Berlin, the Monarch stressed that the Spanish residents in the country are the “living image of the closeness” of both territories and representatives of “the best of Spanish society”. Ours,” he said, “is a relationship characterised by friendship and joint effort, and it is at a great moment. Proof of this is the number of Spanish companies operating here, trade relations, cultural cooperation, tourism…”.
Don Felipe said that emigration to another country always involves uncertainty but also “overcoming, in many cases culminating in professional success, courage and representation”, and added: “Here your work is respected and admired. It has not been easy, you work at it day by day”.
Today, the King and Queen of Spain will be received by the President of Germany, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and his wife, Elke Bündenbender, at the Bellevue Palace, seat of the Federal Presidency, where they will sign the book of honor and an institutional declaration will be made public. Afterwards, Philip VI and Letizia will go to the Monument to the Victims of War and Tyranny, where they will lay a wreath.
In the afternoon, the King will visit the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society, a research institute in the field of physics and chemistry and whose Department of Interface Science is directed since 2017 by the Asturian physicist Beatriz Roldán Cuenya. Around 2,000 Spanish scientists work in Germany. At the end of the day, Philip and Letizia will return to Bellevue Palace, where the King will hold a meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and a state dinner will be held in honor of the King and Queen.
Tomorrow, Philip VI will preside over and inaugurate the German-Spanish Forum, a business meeting dedicated to sustainability and green energy, which will be attended by businessmen such as the Chairman of Iberdrola, José Ignacio Sánchez-Galán, and the CEO of Telefónica, José María Álvarez-Pallete. The King will then be received by the President of the German Parliament, Bärbel Bas, and the Queen will visit the Palais Populaire in Berlin, where a temporary exhibition of the Helga de Alvear museum collection, a German art collector and gallery owner living in Spain, is being held. The King and Queen will conclude their stay in Berlin with a visit to the City Hall and the Brandenburg Gate.
In the afternoon, the King and Queen will inaugurate the Frankfurt Book Fair, where Spain is the guest country. After giving a speech, Philip VI, the President of Germany and his wife will visit the 2,000-square-meter Spanish pavilion. In the evening, the King and Queen will host a reception for the presidential couple at the Meliá Frankfurt.
The King and Queen’s stay in Germany will conclude on Wednesday, with a new visit to the Book Fair to meet with Spanish exhibitors and with the King’s visit to the European Central Bank, where he will meet with its president, Christine Lagarde, and with Spanish officials of the institution. The state visit will conclude in the afternoon at the headquarters of the Instituto Cervantes, where Philip VI and Letizia will hold a meeting with German Hispanists.
