Norway visit
Steinmeier and Büdenbender visit Norway for two days
Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife Elke Büdenbender visit Norway. Photo: Wolfgang Kumm / dpa
© dpa-infocom GmbH
Denmark, Sweden and now Norway – the Federal President and his wife are traveling a lot in Scandinavia these weeks. Germany and Norway have a lot in common – including common problems.
It will be a trip to friends: Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife Elke Büdenbender will visit Norway for two days from this Thursday.
Relations between the two countries are considered to be extremely good. According to the Office of the Federal President, Germany is Norway’s key partner in Europe. The two countries also maintain close cooperation on foreign and security policy. Germany also purchases natural gas from Norway.
The relationships go back a long way. In 1933 the later SPD chairman and Federal Chancellor Willy Brandt fled from the Nazis into exile in Norway. In Oslo – exactly 50 years ago – he received the Nobel Peace Prize for his later policy of détente between West and East.
Course of the visit
Upon arrival, Steinmeier will first meet the President of Parliament, Eva Kristin Hansen, and visit the German Navy’s task force supply company “Berlin”, which is in the port. The protocol highlight on the first day of the visit will be a conversation and lunch with King Harald V and Queen Sonja. A meeting with Norway’s new Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre is planned for the later afternoon. He’s only been in office for around three weeks.
Steinmeier will take a boat with him to Utøya on Friday. Ten years ago, the terrorist Anders Behring Breivik hunted young people there and literally executed them. He had previously detonated a bomb in the government district of Oslo. A total of 77 people died. Another bloody act shook Norway in mid-October when a man attacked numerous people with multiple weapons, including bows and arrows. He killed five people.
Assassination attempt in Utøya
The defense of parliamentary democracy against such assassins, who often radicalize themselves unrecognized, will also be the subject of a panel discussion on Friday. The Federal President takes a woman with him who was praying in the synagogue in Halle in 2019 when a man tried to penetrate it and cause a bloodbath. When this failed, he shot a woman in the street and later a man in a kebab shop.
Steinmeier had condoled King Harald V after the latest attack and assured him: “We condemn this heinous violence. Norway can always count on Germany’s full support when it comes to defending our democracies against violence and hatred. We stand by your side in your commitment to peaceful and respectful coexistence. “
It is already Steinmeier’s third visit to Scandinavia this year. In the summer he was in Denmark, later on a state visit to Sweden. As the last Federal President, Joachim Gauck paid a state visit to Norway in 2014.