Markus Söder will soon have been in office for six years and before him there was probably no Prime Minister who visited more beer tents. In the 2023 election year there were around a hundred. His trips abroad, on the other hand, have remained manageable. Söder has only been outside the European continent once, in Ethiopia in 2019. Trips to the USA and Saudi Arabia failed due to Corona. This Wednesday, Söder is flying to Israel. He visits a war zone for the first time.
Söder (CSU) calls the first travel destination of his new term in office “a conscious decision.” He wants to set an example and show “solidarity with Israel,” he recently told the German Press Agency. The State Chancellery is still keeping details of the three-day trip secret. For security reasons, as they say. Söder has announced “high-level political discussions.” Anyone who knows how Bavarian Prime Ministers see themselves can assume that this is not a bluff.
If Franz Josef Strauss previously traveled to the USA or the Soviet Union, he was naturally received by the heads of state Jimmy Carter and Mikhail Gorbachev. It was similar with Edmund Stoiber. Söder doesn’t do anything below that either. During his trip to Moscow in 2020, he had an appointment with Vladimir Putin that he would certainly not bother with today. The prime ministers also welcomed him on his recent trips to Croatia (2022), Albania and Romania (2023).
The fact that state presidents and prime ministers pay this attention to the prime minister of a German federal state has primarily to do with Bavaria’s economic power. If the Free State were a nation state, Bavaria would be the sixth largest economy in the European Union. And when Bavarian Prime Ministers fly abroad, it is usually about economic relations. Things are different with Söder’s trip to Israel.
Söder first flies to Tel Aviv with a small delegation and then travels on to Jerusalem. We will “visit a kibbutz to see the extent of the destruction and exchange ideas with victims,” said Söder. He emphasized that Bavaria was also providing concrete help with a project to care for traumatized children and young people. In addition, Söder is planning a new agreement with the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial “to further improve the culture of remembrance,” as he said. The Prime Minister will be accompanied by, among others, Ludwig Spaenle (CSU), the state government’s anti-Semitism commissioner.
Moscow and Vladimir Putin (left) visited Prime Minister Söder in 2020.
(Photo: Mikhail Metzel/Imago)
After taking office in 2018, Markus Söder traveled to Rome and met Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. (left) and Pope Francis.
(Photo: Daniel Karmann/dpa)
The first trip abroad of a new legislative period always has a certain symbolism for a prime minister. After taking office in 2018, Söder’s cabinet first traveled to Brussels, and a little later his first solo trip took him to Rome, to Pope Francis and Benedict XVI. The visit took place on the day on which the controversial cross decree came into force in Bavaria, according to which crosses should hang in all authorities in the future. At that time, Söder was the hardliner in refugee policy. In Rome he emphasized several times: “Bavaria is a Christian country.” He was obviously also interested in sharpening his profile, just a few months before the 2018 state elections.
But the hardliner was not well received and the CSU lost its absolute majority. Söder was allowed to remain prime minister, tried to polish his image and first traveled to Ethiopia in his second term in office, including a visit to the refugee camp. To open a “new chapter in Bavarian politics,” as he said at the time, in April 2019.
The history of the Bavarian-Israeli relationship, on the other hand, already has several chapters. Strauss, Stoiber, Horst Seehofer, everyone went there. Söder has also been there as European Minister (2008) and Finance Minister (2016). Back then it was about technology cooperation and the fight against terrorist financing. So now it’s about solidarity, as Söder says, about “a clear commitment” from Bavaria to Israel and Jewish life.
This shouldn’t be any harm given the affair surrounding Deputy Prime Minister Hubert Aiwanger (Free Voters) and the anti-Semitic leaflet. The affair also made headlines in the Israeli media.