Watch the video from Niinistö’s farewell visit to Germany. In Warsaw on Monday, Niinistö will discuss border security with Polish President Andrzej Duda.
BONN Rome at the end of October, Bonn last week, Warsaw on Monday.
President Sauli Niinistö has made a couple of dozen state visits during his term. In addition to them, he has traveled on several dozen working visits to countries around the world.
Working visits are meetings of several hours with different heads of state and women. On state visits, the guard of honor salutes, fanfare plays and guest books are signed. Presidents usually do the latter only a few years.
Now Niinistö is ending his tour of state visits. At least there is still no information about his travels in January, the last month of his presidency.
In almost 12 years, Niinistö has become a president who is listened to by his colleagues around the world. After Russia occupied Crimea in 2014, he took messages from EU countries to Putin. When the Ukraine crisis was resolved, Finland joined NATO, which increased interest in Finnish opinion.
Niinistö and the Federal President of Germany Frank-Walter Steinmeier have known each other since before their presidencies.
Germany usually receives state guests in Berlin. Niinistö was invited to Bonn, the former capital of West Germany.
There is Steinmeier’s second office. According to the Germans’ explanation, Steinmeier wanted to organize the meeting in a more intimate place than usual, where you can talk more freely.
The choice of the place was so extraordinary that it was the subject of most interest to the German journalists at the gentlemen’s joint press conference. A large part of the journalists were from Bonn, and for the people of Bonn, Niinistö’s visit was a big deal.
There have been hardly any presidents in the city since Berlin became the capital of reunified Germany in 1991. Now we saw police convoys, lines of black cars, closed intersections and film crews just like in the old days.
Part of the reason for organizing a state visit in Bonn may also be that the president of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was coming to Berlin as Steinmeier’s guest at the Bellevue Castle official residence as soon as Friday. Erdoğan’s visit required exceptionally impressive and thorough security arrangements in advance.
In Poland, we talk about borders
On Monday and Tuesday, Niinistö and Haukio will visit Warsaw. They are hosted and hosted by the President of Poland Andrzej Duda and Agata Kornhauser-Duda.
Discussions are held on, among other things, “regional security issues”. They alluded to both the war in Ukraine and the recent border issues. Belarus pushes asylum seekers to Poland just like Russia pushes to Finland.
The last time Niinistö visited Poland was almost three years ago. At that time, he participated in the commemoration organized in honor of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz concentration camp.
You can discuss the topic until 23:00 on Monday evening, November 20.