Schwarz-Schilling Meets
with Chancellor Merkel

As you are all aware, the High Representative and EU
Special Representative, Christian Schwarz-Schilling, is in
Berlin
today for a series of
high-level meetings.

He met with German Chancellor
and EU Council President Angela Merkel at 10 o’clock this morning and we will
make available a photo from this meeting together with a short press release as
soon as is possible.

The focus of the meeting with
Chancellor Merkel is the situation in

in advance of the next meeting of
the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) on 26 and 27 February. The PIC is to
review its decision to close the Office of the High Representative at the end of
June this year at that meeting.

In the early afternoon, Mr
Schwarz-Schilling will meet with Reinhard Silberberg, the State Secretary at the
German Foreign Ministry and other officials. These meetings are also
an opportunity to discuss  Bosnia
and Herzegovina
‘s relations with
the European Union.

Berlin has made
developing the European Union’s relations with the countries of the Western
Balkans one of its foreign-policy priorities during its six-month Presidency of
the European Union.