On Monday, heads of state from Germanophone countries met in Potsdam, Germany.
The group included several royals, including the King and Queen of the Belgians, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and the Hereditary Prince and Princess of Liechtenstein, as well as the Presidents of Germany, Austria and Switzerland.
According to the Belgian Monarchy’s Twitter, the first day of work was closed with a conference on topics of actuality, including the coronavirus. The German Presidency’s website reports that the second day’s work will include a roundtable on climate change, as well as a joint press conference.
The heads of state arrived in Potsdam at around 3 p.m. on Monday and were welcomed by the German President, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and his wife, Elke Büdenbender. An official dinner followed the conference.
The event is an annual occurrence, but it had to be cancelled in 2020 due to the global health emergency, which was made the topic of yesterday’s roundtable.
The King and Queen of the Belgians and the Grand Duke of Luxembourg are regular attendants of this event.
Liechtenstein was the only county who sent representatives instead of having the actual Head of State travel to Potsdam.
Belgium, Luxembourg and Switzerland are Germanophone, but they also have other official languages; for Belgium, the official languages are French, Dutch and German, for Luxembourg, they are Luxembourgish, French and German, and for Switzerland, they are German, French and Italian.
The other three countries (Liechtenstein, Austria and Germany) have dialects that are commonly spoken and have been recognised officially, but they do not amount to the official languages of the country.
Unfortunately, not much is coming out of this year’s conference, since not much of the press is allowed to be there because of health restrictions. More information will be made public during Tuesday’s press conference and through official websites’ communications.
