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Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at a state banquet in honour of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Queen Máxima at Schloss Bellevue on 5 July 2021

What a wonderful evening! And how lovely to see you again here in Berlin. For us, and also for me personally, it is not only a wonderful evening, but also, I can assure you, a very special one. For, as good neighbours and friends, Netherlanders and Germans were used to seeing each other frequently, in many cases daily, and above all as a matter of course. This holds true for you as well. There can hardly be any of Germany’s Länder, Your Majesties, that you did not visit in the years before the pandemic. The idea that we would once again be divided by borders which cannot simply be crossed, practically imperceptibly, was no longer a familiar one to us in the European Union.

For that is how it was, until a virus upended everything that seemed so familiar and so inalterable. Today, after a long year of the pandemic, every encounter – and particularly an encounter with friends – assumes a new quality, a special quality. It is both a sign of reassurance and a new beginning, a reminder of proven ties and a reunion on a very new basis.

We are seeing each other again not only as good, old friends, but also as allies and partners in a world in which we are interdependent. The extent of this dependence is something we have noticed over this past year. We are linked to each other, relying on mutual assistance and exchange. This is true of our societies as well as for our economies.

In the border region with North Rhine-Westphalia, the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany have demonstrated with the Cross- Border Task Force Corona that it is possible to coordinate measures and instruments in the fight against the pandemic with a view to avoiding border closures if at all possible. This experience has taught all three countries just how meaningful and important cross-border cooperation is – indeed how truly vital it can become in a pandemic.

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That the falling infection rates now allow a gradual easing of restrictions is an incredible relief for people on both sides of the border. I, at least, have heard from a reliable source that food-loving commuters on the German side can hardly wait for the markets in Winterswijk, Enschede and other border towns to open. Specialities like “lekkerbekjes”, “frietjes” and “frikandellen” are simply indispensable. And the fact that basic commodities like Chocomel and Vla are again easier to procure is also helping to ease the supply situation in North Rhine-Westphalia and Lower Saxony. Many people here this evening will confirm this.

The joint potential of this region, of our countries, is literally boundless – if we all want it to be. And, with an eye to climate change mitigation, the experience gathered in the region will in future become even more important. Germany can learn from the Netherlands’ experience in this area, and only if we work together will we be able to tackle climate change. Side by side, confident in the firm friendship between our countries, we will succeed in meeting many challenges.

So when I say that I am very happy to have you here this evening, you may rest assured that our pleasure in the friendship between the Dutch and the Germans is tremendous.

This is a precious friendship. We know that it emerged from a willingness to reconcile which was by no means self-evident and which we could not expect, given all that Germany did to its neighbour, to the Netherlands and its people.

This afternoon together we visited the newly opened Anne Frank Zentrum in Berlin, a partner organisation of the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. There can be very few people in the world who have not seen a photo of Anne Frank or heard her name. Anne’s story – her far- too-brief happy life with her family in Frankfurt am Main, her suffering under the National Socialist tyranny, the period in which the family found protection and refuge in the Netherlands, and finally her violent death in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp – has helped us realise that behind the abstract number of Jewish victims of the National Socialists’ racist insanity stand six million people, six million lives extinguished and biographies erased.

Each of these lives is unique. Each and every one of these people had a unique life story. But to understand what happened, we need a name, a picture, a story.

Anne Frank gave us these. We have inherited her story. It is a part of our history, of the shared history between our two countries. And we are grateful that we may, that we can together preserve the memory of Anne Frank today.

None of this would be possible without the gift of reconciliation on which the friendship between our two countries can grow. Page 3 of 3

My intention in saying this is to make it clear that it is up to us to nurture this friendship, and I am happy that we are filling it with life, so intensively, across borders. Every year, millions of Germans visit the Netherlands, and by the same token there are millions of Netherlanders who know the German uplands better than most Germans.

With no other country do we maintain such broad-based, intensive economic relations as with the Netherlands. These ties will become even closer in the spheres of research and development with the recently concluded German-Dutch Innovation Pact.

Cooperation arrangements between universities in Germany and the Netherlands are numerous and a matter of course. In Maastricht and elsewhere, students from Germany and the Netherlands meet and, perhaps, prepare for shared European tasks.

And the German-Netherlands Corps marked its 25th anniversary in 2020. Day in, day out, it shows how far we have grown together on questions of joint security, both bilaterally and as NATO members. I could go on: there are many other examples that prove that our relations have never been closer or marked by such a shared European spirit. Your Majesties, allow me therefore to bid you a very warm welcome to Germany, to Berlin and to Schloss Bellevue.

May I ask you now to raise your glasses and join me in a toast to the health of Their Majesties King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Queen Máxima, to our good neighbours the people of the Netherlands, and to the friendship between our two countries.