Former President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are scheduled to appear together on a panel in Germany next month “to discuss civic engagement locally and globally,” Obama’s foundation and the German Protestant Kirchentag announced Tuesday.
A release reads:
On 25 May the former U.S. President and Chancellor Angela Merkel will engage in a conversation on the topic of “Being Involved in Democracy: Taking on Responsibility Locally and Globally”. Kirchentag President Christina Aus der Au and Bishop Heinrich Bedford-Strohm, EKD Council chair, will moderate the discussion at the Brandenburg Gate. The event is being jointly sponsored and planned by the Kirchentag and the Obama Foundation. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm invited President Obama in May 2016 to visit Germany for the Reformation anniversary. Bedford-Strohm: “President Barack Obama’s attending the Kirchentag in Berlin, which will ring in the Reformation Summer, underlines the international character of our 500th anniversary celebrations. The churches form a global civil society network of over two billion Christians. Together, as people of faith, we live from the firm hope for a better world. Anyone who is pious also has to be politically minded. I am looking forward to enthusiastic debates during the Reformation Summer 2017.”
The Obama Foundation framed the event as being centered around “one core theme“: “Getting involved in democracy, and how we all can contribute both locally and globally.”
The Obama-Merkel appearance is expected to occur prior to President Trump’s first meeting with Merkel abroad, at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg in July, the Associated Press notes. Trump hosted Merkel for a U.S. visit in March.
