Status: 02/24/2022 3:25 p.m
Because of the Ukraine war, the Cologne Carnival festival committee canceled the Shrove Monday festival. Instead, a peace demonstration is planned in downtown Cologne.
The planned Shrove Monday festival with a parade in the stadium of the Bundesliga soccer club 1. FC Köln has been cancelled. Instead, a peace demonstration with satirical vehicles will be organized on squares in downtown Cologne. A spokesman for the Cologne Carnival Festival Committee said on Thursday.
However, the current celebrations for Weiberfastnacht continue. The festival committee had announced that cancellations with such short notice would not be possible from a purely organizational point of view. North Rhine-Westphalia’s Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) had also spoken out in favor of canceling carnival parades. “War and carnival in Europe don’t go together,” he said in Düsseldorf.
“Personally, I don’t feel like celebrating at all during these hours,” Wüst continued. “At this sad moment, when war has returned to Europe, I think carnival processions are totally inappropriate.”
Peace demonstration planned in downtown Cologne
Instead of the Shrove Monday festival in the stadium, the festival committee is now planning a peace demonstration in the city center. The carnival floats are to be shown in different places – especially those that have the Russian President Vladimir Putin and the situation in Eastern Europe as their subject.
“The persiflages are the means of expression used by carnivalists to point out grievances,” said Festival Committee President Christoph Kuckelkorn. “And the worst abuse at the moment is the fighting in Ukraine. It’s important to fly the flag for peaceful coexistence.”