For a drink with Olaf Scholz
RP reception in Berlin
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For a drink with the Chancellor
Berlin For the first time since the beginning of the corona pandemic, political Berlin came to the reception in Clärchens Ballhaus on Thursday evening at the invitation of the Rheinische Post.
New threats from Moscow, the fear of a protracted war in Ukraine, the debate about German tank supplies, citizens’ concerns about enormous gas and electricity prices – it is truly not an easy time for the federal government to govern. The fact that the traffic light coalition is currently also crunching for domestic political reasons – for example in the dispute over the debt brake – was not felt at the RP reception on Thursday in Berlin, which took place live for the first time since the beginning of the corona pandemic and at which was honored not only by prominent politicians from Berlin.
RP Editor-in-Chief Moritz Döbler was able to welcome Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), who, despite tight deadlines and suspected jetlag, traveled directly from the UN General Assembly from New York, and to whose speech Döbler once again referred. “The West” is back, “the West” as a term is booming again. “Hopefully not as a combat term like in the Cold War,” says the RP editor-in-chief. The “Voice of the West”, as die Rheinische Post sees itself, is not just a term for localization, but also supported by values, by reason, enlightenment and science. Even the venue, Clärchens Ballhaus in the heart of Berlin, is to a certain extent the scene of the East-West conflict: it was continued as a private business in the GDR era, according to Döbler.
In addition to Chancellor Scholz, who emphasized in passing that Germany was well prepared for the winter, other cabinet members were there again: including SPD Defense Minister Christine Lambrecht, Interior Minister Nancy Faeser and Health Minister Karl Lauterbach, who was one of the few visitors to FFP2 – wore mask. Finance Minister Christian Lindner and Transport Minister Volker Wissing came from the FDP, and Family Minister Lisa Paus from the Green Party. On the host side, it was the RP publishers Florian Merz-Betz and Martin Ebel, the chairman of the supervisory board of the Rheinische Post Mediengruppe, Felix Droste, and the managing director of the publishing house, Hans Peter Bork, who had invited to the Rheinische Parkett in the middle of the capital.
Other guests: the CDU leader Friedrich Merz, the SPD party leaders Saskia Esken and Lars Klingbeil, the Greens parliamentary group leader Britta Hasselmann and SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich, Michael Roth, Minister of State in the Foreign Office, and the CDU foreign politician Norbert Röttgen. NRW Prime Minister Hendrik Wüst (CDU) was angry from Düsseldorf, as was the incumbent mayor of the state capital, Stephan Keller (CDU), and SPD politician Thomas Kutschaty, leader of the opposition in the Düsseldorf state parliament.
In addition to Berlin’s political prominence, numerous other guests – journalists, business representatives and heads of authorities – accepted the invitation to an informal exchange over (old) beer and finger food.
Here is the photo gallery: That was the RP reception 2022 in Berlin