Ireland gets showcase at German president’s summer party

Irish culture and tourist attractions will be highlighted in Berlin on Friday at the summer party of the German federal president.

President Frank Walter Steinmeier has chosen Ireland as guest country for his annual two-day “citizens’ festival” at Bellevue Palace, his official residence. Minister for European Affairs Thomas Byrne will represent Ireland at the event.

Guests on the first day, drawn from the volunteering sector, will be presented with a short performance of Riverdance as well as Irish music, food and a virtual reality tour of favourite tourist destinations.

On Friday afternoon Mr Byrne will participate in a panel discussion with first lady Elke Büdenbender and younger guests about citizen engagement. On Saturday the festival will be open to all and, in total, around 12,000 guests are expected.

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“It is a valuable opportunity to speak about Ireland’s efforts on youth inclusion and engagement in the context of our 50 years of European Union membership,” said Mr Byrne.

The festival follows on from Mr Steinmeier’s state visit to Ireland last year, returning a state visit of President Michael D Higgins to Germany in 2019.

While in Berlin on Friday Mr Byrne will meet the head of the EU affairs committee, Green MP Anton Hoftreiter and the board of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a liberal-libertarian think tank. He will also visit the Berlin Wall memorial and documentation centre.

At his political meetings, Mr Byrne will “underline Ireland’s close bilateral relationship with Germany and ... highlight Ireland’s views on various European issues, most notably EU-UK relations, the impact of Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine and the results of the Conference on the Future of Europe”.