Community, grief and glamour: King Felipe and Queen Letizia land in Germany for state visit

King Felipe and Queen Letizia of Spain are undertaking a State Visit to Germany; they left Madrid on 16 October and will return on the evening of 19 October. 

Their Majesties left Madrid’s main airport after receiving an official send-off, which always happens before state visits. The King and Queen were bid farewell by a group of authorities that included the President of the Senate, the President of the Madrid Community, the Mayor of Madrid, the State Secretary for the European Union and the Chief of the Joint Staff (or Chief of Defense). 

They boarded the state flight with the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the State Secretary for Commerce, both of whom will accompany the King and Queen on their state visit. The plane left the Adolfo Suárez Madrid-Barajas Airport State Pavilion and landed at Brandenburg-Willy Brandt Berlin Airport in the afternoon. 

Upon arrival in the German capital, King Felipe and Queen Letizia were welcomed by the Spanish Ambassador to Germany, the vice-chief of protocol of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Ambassador to Spain, among others. 

The King and Queen’s first event was a reception for the Spanish community living in Germany; the reception was hosted at the Spanish Embassy in Berlin. 

Monday, 17 October, was the first official day of the state visit, and it began with the official welcome ceremony, which was hosted by German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and his wife and held in the court of Bellevue Palace. 

King Felipe reviewed the troops before the two couples had a quick chat with some schoolchildren who came to greet the sovereign and consort; they then headed inside the palace to sign the guest book. 

King Felipe and Queen Letizia then briefly separated and held meetings with their German counterparts before reuniting for a brief press conference held by the two heads of state; in it, King Felipe underlined the strong bonds that tie Spain and Germany and how this visit will serve as a reminder of those bonds. 

It was then time for one of the most poignant moments of any state visit: the floral offer to those who lost their lives. In this case, King Felipe and Queen Letizia laid a flower offering at the feet of the bronze statue “Mother with dead son,” housed within the Neue Wache building. 

The structure has been serving as Germany’s memorial for “victims of war and tyranny” since 1931 when it was established to commemorate the victims of World War I. Since reunification, Neue Wache has been serving as a tribute to all victims of conflict. The King and Queen observed a minute of silence.

Then, while Queen Letizia got some rest, King Felipe visited the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society. His Majesty got a chance to receive a warm welcome in the library before being led on a tour of the facility and meeting a small group of Spanish researchers working there. 

The Max Planck Society is a scientific research institution that works in various fields: healthcare, energy, and natural sciences. King Felipe was given explanations on a project to convert CO2 into fossil fuels and green hydrogen, led by Beatriz Roldán Cueña, a native of Oviedo. 

King Felipe’s next stop was at Bundeskanzleramt, the Federal Chancellery Palace, where he met with Chancellor Olaf Scholz for a discussion on the topics that concern both countries; no transcript or summary of their conversations was released as of the writing of this piece, but it is thought that the war in Ukraine, with all of its corollary issues, was at the forefront of the discussion. 

The day ended with the traditional state banquet hosted by President Steinmeier and First Lady Elke Büdenbender at Bellevue Palace. Queen Letizia was wearing a red Stella McCartney dress and a pair of diamond and ruby chandelier earrings (both repeats from King Willem-Alexander’s 50th birthday dinner) to mimic the main colour of the German flag. 

As it often happens when one of the two parties of a state visit is a republic, there were no tiaras, and the dress code was lowered to a black tie rather than requiring the white tie commonly seen during state banquets in visits from monarch to monarch. 

The visit will continue at the German Parliament before arriving in Frankfurt, where Their Majesties will open the Frankfurt Book Fair, for which Spain is the guest nation. The King and Queen will then host a reception for the German President and First Lady. 

The last day will bring King Felipe’s visit to the European Central Bank, while Queen Letizia will be at the Cervantes Institute before the two make their way back to Madrid. 

King Felipe and Queen Letizia’s last visit to Germany was in 2014. The two countries share very deep ties, political, as they are both members of the European Union (as evidenced by both Queen Letizia and Ms Büdenbender’s choice of EU blue for their outfits), and economic because Germany is the EU’s leading power.