Rostock (dpa/mv) - The former Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU) is to come to Rostock again next year as a guest speaker at a traditional merchants' meeting. "She agreed with reservations," said Klaus-Jürgen Strupp, chairman of the organizing association and Rostock Chamber of Industry and Commerce President, in Rostock on Friday. "We're very happy about that."
After she came as a guest speaker to the so-called annual food of the Rostock merchants a year before her first chancellorship, she was actually invited a year after her chancellorship, so this year, said Strupp. "She said she won't do it this year." Merkel has only made limited public appearances this year. Subject to health and any more important dates, Merkel has promised that she will come next year.
The annual meal of the Rostock merchants is a feast that has been taking place since the Middle Ages and where entrepreneurs traditionally collect money for charitable purposes in the Hanseatic city. This year, the Union faction leader and CDU leader Friedrich Merz came as a guest speaker.
