Overview
- The visit began Thursday when President Mohammed bin Zayed was received in Berlin by President Frank‑Walter Steinmeier with military honours at Villa Borsig.
- The programme includes meetings with Bundestag president Julia Klöckner and Chancellor Friedrich Merz, a state banquet in Berlin and a planned trip to Munich on Friday.
- Emirati officials and German sources say about 40 to 45 government and corporate agreements are expected, covering investments, energy and AI data centres and proposing a deutsch‑emiratic Investitionsrat to institutionalise cooperation.
- Berlin has deployed roughly 1,300 police and staged large security measures such as road closures, sealed manholes and the cordoning of the Waldorf Astoria hotel, actions that have disrupted buses, local traffic and led to the clearing of a homeless camp near the government quarter.
- The visit is drawing public criticism from NGOs over alleged UAE involvement in the Sudan and unions over looser arms‑export rules, while plans for a daily BER–Dubai flight raise competition concerns for carriers such as Lufthansa.