Europe · updated 1h ago · 3 min read
Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Meets Germany’s Steinmeier and Chancellor Merz During State Visit
UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed begins state visit to Germany to deepen bilateral partnership. He will meet Steinmeier and Merz to discuss cooperation, focusing on economic development and trade.
Whether regional security or economic resilience is the main driver.
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EU Today
“Yet the value of those ties today lies increasingly in their ability to respond to a much less predictable international environment.”Read the original ↗
Gulf News emphasises Gaza and Iran’s security weight in the visit. EU Today and others frame it mainly as a response to global disruption.
State visit and security agenda
UAE President His Highness Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan began a state visit to Germany on Wednesday, meeting German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Chancellor Friedrich Merz as the trip’s economic headlines were expected to overshadow a heavier political agenda.
“Gaza, Iran and the future of Gulf security all fall within it”
The Gulf News account says the agenda’s real weight sits in “Gaza, Iran and the future of Gulf security,” with the two governments arriving with positions that “have moved considerably in the past year.”G
Gulf News also places the visit in the context of Merz’s Gulf trip in early February to Riyadh, Doha and finally Abu Dhabi, and says Berlin described it as building strategic partnerships for peace and stability in the Gulf.G
In parallel, EU Today frames the same visit as happening after “Germany and the UAE established diplomatic relations in 1972 and elevated them to a strategic partnership in 2004,” and links the renewed focus to a world transformed by “war, disrupted supply chains, energy insecurity and intensifying competition over technology and industrial capacity.”E
UAE mediation and European leverage
EU Today says the UAE has sought to preserve channels of communication across geopolitical divides, citing its role in mediating exchanges of prisoners between Russia and Ukraine and adding that “Emirati mediation has contributed to 26 exchanges involving nearly 8,000 prisoners since the war began.”E
In the same account, UAE Ambassador to Germany Ahmed Al Attar argues that maintaining relationships with both sides on conflicts allows Abu Dhabi to continue facilitating dialogue when formal channels have narrowed, and it presents that as part of a diplomacy “becoming less binary.”
Gulf News, meanwhile, describes how a position agreed across eight capitals on Sunday and carried into a European capital on Wednesday was used to build diplomatic leverage, saying Germany is a difficult and important audience because “what Germany says tends to set the ceiling for what the European Union can agree to say.”G
Gulf News also reports that Ahmed Alattar said Germany was among the first European countries to condemn the UAE’s direct attack from Iran during 2026, and that Merz telephoned Sheikh Mohamed to express solidarity weeks after his Abu Dhabi visit.G
Trade ties and what’s at stake
Beyond politics, the sources tie the visit to deepening economic cooperation, with Gulf News saying bilateral trade passed $15.5 billion in 2025 and that Germany signalled readiness for closer trade cooperation including a possible free trade agreement.
“Bilateral trade passed $15.5 billion in 2025”
Gulf News also lists deals that followed, including ADNOC and RWE on gas and LNG and Masdar and RWE on battery storage, while EU Today emphasizes that energy cooperation has expanded beyond LNG into “battery storage, offshore wind, green hydrogen and the technologies needed to decarbonise industry.”
The National adds that bilateral trade between the two countries exceeded Dh57 billion ($15.52 billion) last year, and says an estimated 2,000 German businesses have set up office in the UAE including BMW, Siemens, ThyssenKrupp, and Deutsche Bahn.
In parallel, Gulf News describes a political thread running alongside the commerce, noting that on Sunday—three days before Merz’s departure—the UAE signed a joint foreign ministers’ statement with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, Türkiye, Pakistan and Indonesia rejecting proposals to forcibly displace Palestinians from Gaza.G