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Federal Minister of Finance Christian Lindner (FDP) on the TV station Welt: “I received an invitation – and I will accept it”
Photo: FILIP SINGER / EPA
Federal Finance Minister Christian Lindner (FDP) is preparing a trip to Kyiv.
"I received an invitation - and I will accept it," he said on Friday on TV station Welt.
»My Ukrainian finance minister colleague said during a conversation these days that it would be helpful for them if I, as finance minister and current G7 chairman of finance ministers, were in Kyiv on one occasion.
And that's why we're going to do it now.«
At the beginning of May, Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) visited Kyiv;
It was the first trip by a member of the federal cabinet to the Ukrainian capital since Russia's war of aggression began on February 24.
Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD), on the other hand, has not been in Kyiv since the beginning of the war.
The background to this is, among other things, a controversy over the Ukrainian government disinviting Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
In the meantime, however, this conflict has been resolved;
the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyj invited the Chancellor as well as Steinmeier and the entire federal government to Kyiv.
On Friday, the President of the Ukrainian Parliament, Ruslan Stefantschuk, also extended an invitation to Scholz, with whom he met in the Chancellery.
According to Deputy Government Spokesman Wolfgang Büchner, the Chancellor "kindly took note" of the invitation.
However, he said nothing about concrete travel plans on Friday.
Lindner did not want to comment directly on the TV station Welt.
"What the chancellor does now, he must decide," he said.
jso/AFP