Festspiele: First, it's about Syria and Brexit, then Mozart

Festspiele: It is first of Syria and Brexit, then Mozart

SALZBURG. March of political figures in Salzburg – Kurz and May discuss final negotiations of exit

Van der Bellen opens the festival. Image: APA / BARBARA GINDL

The Salzburg Festival is not only the culmination of the Austrian cultural summer. They are also traditionally used as an opportunity for informal exchanges between national and international leaders. This is certainly true this year, when the festival falls under the mandate of the Austrian Presidency of the European Union.

The high-level meeting is on the agenda as soon as the festival opens. On Friday afternoon, Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (VP) will welcome British Prime Minister Theresa May at the conservatory of the Hotel Sacher, an agreement on Brexit with EU-27 that should be in place in October and the Kurz mediator between Brussels and London. May, recently declared chief negotiator, was pressured by Brexit supporters in the party.

In the evening, the Federal Chancellor will meet May and the heads of government of the Czech Republic and Estonia, Andrej Babis and Jüri Ratas, Visit the premiere of Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute" . The planned four-way talks with Babis and Ratas will revolve around bilateral relations and the presidency, he says from the Chancellery.

A regular guest of world politics, German Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU), will not come to Salzburg. The Chancellor summarily canceled the summer holidays at the top of the CSU camp, which is in the short camp and not for Merkel.

Federal President Alexander Van der Bellen received the official visit of President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa integrated his program in the city of Mozart. With the governor Wilfried Haslauer (VP), he receives Rebelo de Sousa in the morning on the Residenzplatz. At 11 am, Van der Bellen opens the Festival at the Felsenreitschule

United Nations Special Representative for Syria Staffan de Mistura and his Macedonian counterpart Nikola Dimitrov also received Foreign Minister Karin Kneissl (FP). (luc)

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