King Charles heads to Germany on first overseas trip as monarch
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[March 29, 2023]
By Phil Noble and Sarah Marsh
LONDON/BERLIN (Reuters) - King Charles set off to Germany on Wednesday
in his first state visit abroad since becoming British monarch, as part
of efforts to turn the page on years of rocky relations between Britain
and the European Union after its exit from the bloc.
Charles, who succeeded his mother Queen Elizabeth as the British monarch
in September, had been due to travel first to France, but cancelled that
part of the tour due to violent social unrest over President Emmanuel
Macron's new pension law.
During his three-day visit to Germany's capital Berlin, the eastern
state of Brandenburg and the northern port city of Hamburg, Charles will
address issues facing both countries such as sustainability and the
Ukraine crisis, as well as commemorate the past, according to Buckingham
Palace.
His plane will be escorted into Berlin by fighter jets as a mark of
respect, the pilot said ahead of the takeoff on Wednesday.
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German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier will greet Charles and his wife
Queen Consort Camilla with military honours at Berlin's most famous
landmark, the Brandenburg Gate, a symbol of the country's division
during the Cold War and subsequent reunification.
It would be the first ceremonial welcome held there for a visiting head
of state.
Steinmeier, is poised to hold a state banquet on Thursday at the
presidential palace Schloss Bellevue for the royal couple, said it was
an important "European gesture" that Charles had chosen France and
Germany for his first state visit, even before his coronation in May.
"To him and obviously all Britons, I want to say that we in Germany, in
Europe, wish for close and friendly relations with the United Kingdom
even after Brexit," he said in a video message ahead of the trip.
Underscoring Charles' interest in environmental causes, one of his first
engagements in Berlin will be a forum on sustainability where he will
meet Germany's foreign and economy ministers who are both from the
Greens party, junior partner in the country's three-way coalition.
There he will also meet business leaders, academics and civil society
representatives to discuss matters from hydrogen and renewables to
industrial decarbonisation, according to Buckingham Palace.
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People line up in front of Brandenburg
Gate to attend the welcome ceremony for Britain's King Charles in
Berlin, Germany, March 29, 2023. REUTERS/Michelle Tantussi
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POST BREXIT RESET?
Charles will address the German lower house of parliament, the
Bundestag - which he last addressed in 2020 as Prince of Wales - on
Thursday in Berlin, and meet some of the one million Ukrainians who
have taken refuge from war in Germany.
Later in the day, he will meet representatives from a joint
German-British military unit for a demonstration of their
bridge-building amphibious vehicles in Brandenburg.
On Friday, he will visit a church in Hamburg that was destroyed by
allied bombing in World War Two, and meet representatives of firms
deploying green technology in the port.
Steinmeier said he had extended an invitation to Charles, who has
travelled to Germany more than 40 times, at the funeral of his
mother last September. The British government, however, makes the
ultimate decisions on such state visits, which form part of its use
of the monarchy's 'soft power'.
As such, the trip was a clear sign of British Prime Minister Rishi
Sunak's push to reset relations with Europe, said Anand Menon,
director of academic think tank UK in a Changing Europe.
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However, any warmer relations with Europe brought about by the visit
could cool quickly if other post-Brexit issues flare up. These
include if the effort fails to yield Britain's readmittance to the
Horizon programme, the EU's key funding programme for research and
innovation, with a 95.5 billion euro budget.
Queen Elizabeth had urged Europe to guard against division in the
continent during her fifth and last state visit to Germany in 2015,
at a time when Britain was seeking to renegotiate its position in
the EU.
Macron has suggested Charles' visit to France could be rescheduled
for the summer.
(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Phil Noble; Additional reporting by
William James and Michael Holden; Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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