Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office Werner Hoyer is to travel to Paris on Monday (9 November) to join his French counterpart Pierre Lellouche and Prime Minister François Fillon in the celebrations organized by the French Foreign Ministry to mark the twentieth anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall.

Minister of State Hoyer issued the following statement today (6 November) in advance of his visit to Paris:

“I am looking forward to the festivities in Paris and thank the French Government for this gesture of friendship and solidarity with Germany. France and Germany are together celebrating a great day in both German and European history. A day that stands for freedom, civil courage and a united Europe without walls or borders.”

A public event at the Place de la Concorde is to be held in the presence of the Mayor of Paris Bertrand Delanoe, members of the Franco-German Parliamentary Group at the French National Assembly and other representatives from French public life. Minister of State Hoyer will represent the Federal Government on this occasion.

The highlight is to be a musical drama tracing the path from the division of Germany and Europe via the fall of the Wall to reunification and the European Union of today. A group of 27 young cellists from the 27 member states of the European Union will perform works by Fauré, Bach and Schnittke to commemorate the historic concert given by Mstislav Rostropovich at Checkpoint Charlie on 11 November 1989.