(ANSA-AP) - BERLIN, 19 AUG - Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor
Orban and German Chancellor Angela Merkel are commemorating the
30th anniversary of the "Pan-European Picnic," an event on the
border of Austria and Hungary considered to have helped lead to
the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Both leaders are expected to make speeches during a religious
ceremony Monday in the border town of Sopron before holding
bilateral talks over lunch.
Merkel on Saturday thanked Hungary for "having contributed to
making the miracle of German reunification possible" by briefly
opening the Iron Curtain on Aug. 19, 1989, allowing 700 refugees
from Communist-ruled East Germany to cross the border into the
West.
Relations between Berlin and Budapest have grown frostier in
recent years amid Orban's hard-line stance against refugees and
German criticism of Hungary's authoritarian policies. (ANSA-AP).
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