Luxembourg’s Minister of Foreign and European Affairs, Jean Asselborn, attended the election on Sunday of Germany’s new President, centre-left politician Frank-Walter Steinmeier, at the Bundestag in Berlin.
Germany’s federal presidents play a largely ceremonial role, and are elected by committee, the Federal Convention, rather than by popular vote. Sixty-one-year-old President Steinmeier should serve for five years, with a single opportunity for re-election.
Steinmeier, a centre-left member of the Social Democratic party, once described Donald Trump as a “hate preacher.”
In his acceptance speech, Steinmeier said that Germany should be an “anchor of hope” as the world’s democratic institutions tremble. “As the foundations are shaking elsewhere, we have to prop up those foundations even more strongly,” he said
Prior to his participation at the Federal Assembly, Minister Asselborn met with the German Social Democrats (SPD) parliamentary group at the invitation of Thomas Oppermann, Chairman of the SPD Group in the Bundestag.
Image: Jean Asselborn, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, at the Bundestag on Sunday. Photo supplied
