On December 19-20, 2019, Minister for Foreign Affairs Vadym Prystaiko made his first official visit to Berlin at the invitation of his German counterpart Minister Heiko Maas. During 2019, Minister Vadym Prystaiko twice visited the Federal Republic of Germany as a foreign policy advisor to the President of Ukraine.

In the course of a meeting the foreign ministers discussed issues of bilateral character and energy security, as well as ways of implementing the decisions of  the Paris Summit in the Normandy format in order to make progress in the Minsk process.

The sides also agreed that a delegation of state secretaries of the German ministries will visit Ukraine at the beginning of the year to continue the intensive intersectoral dialogue with Ukrainian partners. This will be the fourth such visit in the last few years.

The agenda of the visit also included a meeting with President of the Bundestag Wolfgang Schäuble, who highly assessed Ukraine's achievements on the path of large-scale domestic transformations amid the war in Donbas.

The meetings with the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the Bundestag Norbert Röttgen and the foreign policy spokesperson of the CDU/CSU Parliamentarian Group Jürgen Hardt were important in terms of ensuring continued support of Germany for Ukraine. Vadym Prystaiko made a special emphasis on Ukraine’s commitment to the political and diplomatic path to end the war in Donbas and the importance of maintaining sanction pressure on the Russian Federation. Steps were agreed to intensify inter-parliamentary cooperation between the two countries.

The Foreign Minister also met with the Chairman of the Parliamentary Group of Friendship with Ukraine of the Bundestag Omid Nouripour (member of the faction Alliance 90 / The Greens). He informed, among other things, about the steps of the Government’s steps aimed at ensuring further economic growth and improving the investment climate in our country, and also asked for support of Ukraine's path toward EU and NATO membership.

The upmost subject of meeting with Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany Gerd Müller was  the support of the Government of Germany for the further continuation of far-reaching reforms and projects of financial and technical cooperation. The Minister for Foreign Affairs thanked the German side as the leading donor of Ukraine for large-scale assistance. The sides stressed the need to focus German assistance on several priority areas, in particular to improve the economic situation and infrastructure in eastern Ukraine. Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development Gerd Müller accepted Foreign Minister’s invitation to visit Ukraine next year.

At a meeting with Foreign Policy Advisor to the German Chancellor Jan Hecker special attention was given to ensuring real progress on the track in the Minsk Process. Jan Hecker noted the Kyiv’s commitment in this regard and he stressed that the German Chancellor Angela Merkel continues to fully support Ukraine.