Merkel, Orban To Mark Iron Curtain Anniversary Amid New Divides

Budapest, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 19th Aug, 2019 ) :Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban will welcome German Chancellor Angela Merkel to the city of Sopron Monday to commemorate a pivotal moment in the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989.

While Monday's meeting will see them celebrating the tearing down of a historic barrier in Europe, the question of how the continent's borders should be managed now has strained the relationship between the two leaders in recent years.

Orban has been a sharp critic of Merkel's 2015 decision to open Germany's border to those fleeing middle Eastern conflict zones.

The pair will mark the 30th anniversary of the "Pan-European Picnic" at the Hungarian-Austrian border, during which at least 600 East Germans crossed the border and escaped to freedom in the West.

The events at the picnic represented the first massive exodus of East Germans since the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and was seen as a key factor in the fall of the wall itself three months later.

The commemoration will be a rare encounter between the two of the great survivors of European politics, with Merkel in office since 2005 and Orban since 2010.

Their last major bilateral meeting was in July 2018, when Orban made his first visit to Berlin for three years.

It was an awkward affair during which their divisions were on full display and Merkel accused Orban of failing to respect "humanity" with his harsh anti-migrant policies.