Meeting of the heads of state of the German-speaking countries

The countries whose heads of state take part in the annual informal meetings of the German-speaking countries: Austria , Belgium , Germany , Liechtenstein , Luxembourg and Switzerland

The meetings of the heads of state of the German-speaking countries are one to two-day informal gatherings of the heads of state of those European countries which use German as one of their official languages ​​on a national level. The summits have been held since 2004 and are hosted by a different country every year in summer or autumn.

Name and concept

The meetings have not yet had an officially established title. In addition to "Meetings of the heads of state of the German-speaking countries", the participants and the press also used "Meetings of the German-speaking heads of state", "Summit of the German-speaking heads of state", "Meetings of the German-speaking countries / states" or other formulations.

The summits of the German-speaking countries are expressly not about a formalized language organization such as the Francophonie , but rather informal, but regular, one to two-day working meetings at the invitation of a head of state. The participating representatives are always accompanied by their spouses or life companions who, similar to the G7 summit , pursue a so-called "ladies' program" parallel to the meeting. In addition to a cultural program, political issues are also discussed without, however, adopting binding declarations. Due to the quantitative dominance of Germany (it represents almost 75% of the approximately 112 million inhabitants of the six countries represented at the meetings), value was placed on an equal and non-binding exchange from the start. This is expressed, among other things, by the waiver of economic representatives and the restriction to representative participants (heads of state instead of heads of government).

History and controversy

Political working meetings of certain government ministers of the German-speaking countries were held before 2004 as required, but there were no media-effective meetings at the highest level. The proposal for such a meeting came in 2004 from the Austrian Federal President Heinz Fischer after his Swiss colleague Joseph Deiss had expressed the wish for more exchange with the European Union within the framework of the German-speaking countries (“Lake Constance format”). After an initial meeting in St. Gallen , follow-up meetings and the invitation of the Liechtenstein Hereditary Prince Alois were agreed for the next year. In addition to the heads of state of Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Liechtenstein, Belgium and Luxembourg have also been taking part since 2014 .

While the chairman of the German-speaking Community of Belgium , Karl-Heinz Lambertz , saw the participation of the little German-speaking King Philippe at the meeting as a historical recognition of the multilingualism of Belgium, there were also critical voices in Luxembourg. Since representatives of Luxembourg previously classified their country as a Luxembourgish- speaking and not German- or French-speaking country, Grand Duke Henri's participation in the meeting initially led to a certain controversy, with positive and negative voices in the Luxembourg press as well as the fundamental question such as the term "German-speaking “To be defined. However, after the Luxembourg Prime Ministers and Foreign Ministers expressly approved of the participation, as well as because of the unofficial character and the rather minor political significance of the meetings, the criticism subsided. Due to an allegedly similar geographical expansion and a historical swipe at the perceived dominance of Germany, the meeting was also referred to as the " German Confederation ".

The absence of representatives from such areas with a similar number or even more German speakers than Liechtenstein or Belgium, namely South Tyrol ( Trentino-South Tyrol region , Italy ) and Poland , was also questioned and explained, among other things, with historically determined political explosiveness. Furthermore, in contrast to Belgium, in Italy German is only the official language in Trentino-Alto Adige, but not at the national level. Since this region is not a sovereign state, it does not have a representative head of state who could attend according to the concept of the meetings. In all other countries with recognized German-speaking minorities, e.g. B. Hungary, Romania, Poland, Namibia or Denmark , the situation is similar.

List of meetings of the heads of state of the German-speaking countries

year	host	Meeting place	Attendees	Topic (s)
2004	Federal President Joseph Deiss	St. Gallen	, ,	"Relationship between Switzerland and the European Union, structural reforms of the welfare state, Iraq and the Middle East"
2005	Federal President Heinz Fischer	Salzburg	, , ,
2006	Federal President Horst Köhler	Meersburg	, , ,
2007	Hereditary Prince Alois from and to Liechtenstein	Vaduz	, , ,
2008	Federal President Pascal Couchepin	Rapperswil	, , ,
2009	Federal President Heinz Fischer	Eisenstadt	, , ,
2010	Federal President Christian Wulff	Lübeck	, , ,	"Integration and promotion of the German language"
2011	Hereditary Prince Alois from and to Liechtenstein	Vaduz	, , ,	"Education"
2012	Federal President Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf	Chur	, , ,
2013	Federal President Heinz Fischer	innsbruck	, , ,
2014	Federal President Joachim Gauck	Bad Doberan & Rostock	, , , , ,	"The peaceful revolution 25 years ago and demographic change"
2015	Hereditary Prince Alois from and to Liechtenstein	Vaduz	, , , , ,	"Digital change in the labor market"
2016	King Philippe	Brussels & Eupen	, , , ,	"Youth unemployment, employment and education"
2017	Grand Duke Henri of Nassau	Luxembourg	, , , , ,	"Immigration and Integration"
2018	Federal President Alain Berset	Sils in the Engadine	, , , , ,	"Cultural participation"
2019	Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen	Linz	, , , , ,	"Democracy and digital society, EU after the European elections and the climate crisis"
2020
2021

See also

• German Spelling Council

Individual evidence

1. ↑ www.nachrichten.at - Meeting of heads of state in Linz: "Respect" for Van der Bellen (June 4th, 2019)
2. ↑ ^{a b} Neue Zürcher Zeitung - Too much Germanophony harms business, from October 24, 2014
3. ↑ ^{a b c d} d'Lëtzebuerger Land - At the German Confederation in Eupen (September 2nd, 2016)
4. ↑ Le Quotidien - Polémique autour de la présence du Grand-Duc à un sommet germanophone (September 7, 2016)
5. ↑ www.bundespraesident.de - Meeting of the heads of state of the German-speaking countries (November 1, 2010)
6. ↑ Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research - Michaela Kreyenfeld gives lecture at meeting of German-speaking heads of state (September 19, 2014)
7. ↑ BRF.be - Meeting of the German-speaking countries in Vaduz (September 17, 2015)
8. ↑ BRF.be - Photo album: Summit of the German-speaking countries in Eupen (September 8, 2016)
9. ↑ www.volksfreund.de - Heads of State from six countries meet in Luxembourg (September 27, 2017)
10. ↑ www.admin.ch - The sixth meeting of the heads of state of the German-speaking countries will take place this year on September 5th and 6th in Switzerland (August 10th 2018)
11. ↑ www.nachrichten.at - Heads of State will meet next week in Linz (May 31, 2019)