Berlin: the Brussels Minister-President was invited to attend the commemoration ceremonies for the Fall of the Berlin Wall
On 8 and 9 November 2019, Rudi Vervoort, the Minister-President of the Brussels Capital-Region (BCR), visited Berlin at the invitation of his Berlin counterpart, Mayor-Governor Michael Müller, to celebrate a very special anniversary. Thirty years ago, in November 1989, the City-State formed the backdrop for an historic event of global significance, i.e., the Fall of the Berlin Wall.
On the first day of his visit, Rudi Vervoort participated in a Mayors’ Talk in the Berlin House of Representatives. The Minister-President of the BCR shared his memories of this milestone, with an audience of 300 guests and the mayors of Budapest, Istanbul, Warsaw and Prague. He also stressed the symbolic significance of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and how important it is to draw lessons from the past.
On 9 November, the mayor attended various official commemorations and ceremonies. Some were moving, such as the moment of reflection at the Berlin Wall Memorial where the guests paid tribute to the victims. Others were more festive, such as the concert at the Brandenburg Gate, which was attended by a hundred thousand people and which celebrated the reunification of Berlin and Germany on 9 November 1989.
The presence of the Minister-President of the BCR at this anniversary attests to the strong ties of friendship that unite Berlin et and the Brussels-Capital Region, which are enshrined in a cooperation agreement that was signed almost thirty years ago, in 1992.