2024-10-18 00:08:00
US President Joe Biden arrived in Berlin for a short visit. Biden’s government plane Air Force One landed in the German capital late on Thursday evening, where he plans to meet, among others, Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Friday. The 81-year-old was originally supposed to travel to Berlin a week earlier, but canceled the trip at short notice – because of a hurricane that was heading towards the southeast coast of the USA at the time.
Now Biden is making up for his visit in a scaled-down form, with a short working visit instead of a state visit. On Friday morning he will first be welcomed with military honors by Steinmeier at Bellevue Palace and will then receive the “Special Level of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic” – the highest award that Germany can bestow. Of the 14 US presidents who have governed the Federal Republic since its inception, only George Bush senior has been honored with this honor.
A meeting with Scholz in the Chancellery is then planned. They are later joined by French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. This means that the heads of state and government of the four most powerful NATO partners and Ukraine’s most important allies are sitting together. The main topics of the round are likely to be the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
Before the meeting, Scholz praised Biden for his influence on the relationship between Germany and the United States. “It’s important to know that there was someone who actively pushed this forward out of deep inner understanding,” said Scholz about the outgoing US President after the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday evening. “That helped us a lot after Russia’s attack on Ukraine and, for example, brought NATO together,” the Chancellor added.
But there is also a lot to discuss, such as the not yet fully negotiated $50 billion loan for Ukraine. “I’m very confident about that,” said Scholz. At its summit in June, the group of large western industrialized countries (G7) decided on new financial aid worth around $50 billion for Kiev. There will also be discussions about the situation in Ukraine and what needs to be done now.
Biden originally wanted to hold a large international conference with various heads of state and government at the US air force base in Ramstein during his visit to Germany to discuss further support for Ukraine. That won’t happen now. The White House announced that the Ukraine summit would be held via video link in November.
It is Biden’s first bilateral visit to Germany in his almost four-year term in office. The US President took part in the G-7 summit in Elmau in 2022 and made refueling stops with his government plane at the American military base in Ramstein on another occasion, but did not dedicate a solo trip to Germany.
The 81-year-old is now making up for this shortly before he leaves the White House. Biden will leave office in January. He dropped out of the race for a second term in July following pressure from his party. Numerous party colleagues had publicly expressed doubts about his mental and physical fitness.
The US presidential election is less than three weeks away, on November 5th. Instead of Biden, his deputy, Vice President Kamala Harris, is running for the Democrats – and former President Donald Trump is running for the Republicans. There is a head-to-head race between the two.
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