Scholz calls for “pan-European” unity on the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall

MADRID 9 Nov. () –

The German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has appealed for the unity of European countries and has described the fall of the Berlin Wall, which marks 35 years this Saturday, as a “pan-European” victory that marked a turning point in the development of the continent.

“Our shared history in the fall of 1989 shows us how we achieved our objectives: by remaining united, for peace and freedom, for security and prosperity, for the rule of law and democracy,” the chancellor said this Friday in a video message in which he described the fall of the Wall as the “happy culmination of pan-European development.”

Along these lines, Scholz has called for international solidarity in general and European solidarity in particular, recalling how Germany’s “neighbors” contributed to this historic event in the same message, picked up by the German television network Deutsche Welle.

“There were the brave trade unionists from Solidarity in Poland; the revolutionary singers from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania; the brave women and men from Hungary, Czechoslovakia and other countries,” the president listed. “The victory of freedom in the autumn of 1989 was a pan-European victory,” he concluded.

The fall of the Berlin Wall is commemorated this year in a context of growing political instability in Germany, which could hold early general elections around March following the government crisis and the dissolution of the coalition.

Last Wednesday, Scholz announced the departure of the liberals from the coalition, while ensuring that he would submit to a vote of confidence on January 15, which would imply new elections in March. Although the German Chancellor initially ruled out changing the calendar, this Friday at the end of the informal European Council held in Budapest, he was not so categorical.

Thus, the main opposition leader, Friedrich Merz, is already the official candidate of the conservative bloc for the Chancellery and appears as a favorite in voting intention, while the current Minister of Economy, Robert Habeck, announced this Friday his intention to run as a candidate for the Los Verdes party, a member of the current government coalition.