BERLIN
\nKing Charles III arrived in Berlin on Wednesday for his first foreign trip as Britain\u2019s monarch, hoping to improve the UK\u2019s relations with the European Union and to show that he can win hearts and minds abroad, just as his mother did for seven decades.
\nCharles and Camilla, the queen consort, landed at Berlin\u2019s government airport in the early afternoon. The king, dressed in a black coat, and his wife, in a light blue coat and a feather-trimmed teal hat worn at a jaunty angle, paused at the top of their plane\u2019s stairs to receive a 21-gun salute as two military jets performed a flyover.
\nGerman President Frank-Walter Steinmeier was scheduled to welcome the royal couple with military honors at the German capital\u2019s historic Brandenburg Gate.
\nCharles, 74, who ascended the throne after the death of Queen Elizabeth II in September, is set to be crowned on May 6. As Britain\u2019s head of state, the king meets weekly with the prime minister and retains his mother\u2019s role as leader of the Commonwealth.
\nHe had initially planned to first visit France, but the first leg of his trip was canceled due to massive protests over planned pension changes there.
\nBilled as a multi-day tour of the European Union\u2019s two biggest countries, the trip was designed to underscore British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak\u2019s efforts to rebuild relations with the bloc after six years of arguments over Brexit and highlight the countries\u2019 shared history as they work together to combat Russian aggression in Ukraine.
\nNow everything rests on Germany, where the king faces the first big test of whether he can be an effective conduit for the \u201csoft power\u201d the House of Windsor has traditionally wielded, helping Britain pursue its geopolitical goals through the glitz and glamor of a 1,000-year-old monarchy.
\nCharles, a former naval officer who is the first British monarch to earn a university degree, is expected to insert heft where his glamorous mother once wielded star power. His visit to Germany will give him an opportunity to highlight the causes he holds dear, like sustainability and the environment.
\nBut there will also be a full dose of the pomp and circumstance that screams royal visit, starting with the ceremonial welcome at the Brandenburg Gate and a white tie dinner at Schloss Bellevue, the German president\u2019s official residence, on Wednesday evening.
\nRoyal fans started lining up early in the morning for security checks at the Brandenburg Gate, hoping to get a close view of Charles and Camilla. By noon, hundreds of fans awaited their arrival as police and sniffer dogs worked in the area. About 1,500 spectators were admitted to the cordoned-off area, German news agency dpa reported.
\nChristoph Muehlbach, 59, had traveled by train from Hamburg to see the British royals. He described himself as a supporter of the royal family for the last 20 years and said he had traveled to London in the past for weddings, anniversaries and the queen\u2019s state funeral.
\n\u201cI take great pleasure in the British royal family,\u201d Muehlbach told dpa.
\nGabriele Fluechter, 57, of Berlin, said she came \u201cout of love for England,\u201d where she had attended university. She said she had seen Elizabeth on one of the queen\u2019s visits to Berlin, and also had spotted Charles and Camilla before.
\n\u201cThey walked along there very casually,\u201d she said, adding that the long wait was no problem,
\nOn Thursday, the king is scheduled to give a speech to the Bundestag, Germany\u2019s parliament. He will also meet Chancellor Olaf Scholz, talk to Ukrainian refugees, and meet with British and Germany military personnel who are working together on joint projects. In the afternoon he will visit an organic farm outside of Berlin.
\nThe royal couple plan to go to Hamburg on Friday, where they will visit the Kindertransport memorial for Jewish children who fled from Germany to Britain during the Third Reich, and attend a green energy event before returning to the UK
\nThe king was urged to make the trip by Sunak, who during his first six months in office negotiated a settlement to the long-running dispute over post-Brexit trading rules for Northern Ireland and reached a deal with France to combat the people smugglers ferrying migrants across the English Channel in small boats. Sunak hopes goodwill created by a royal visit can help pave the way for progress on other issues, including Britain\u2019s return to an EU program that funds scientific research across Europe.
\nBritain\u2019s senior royals are among the most recognizable people on the planet. While their formal powers are strictly limited by law and tradition, they draw attention from the media and the public partly because of the historic ceremonies and regalia that accompany them \u2014 and also because the public is fascinated by their personal lives.
\nElizabeth\u2019s influence stemmed in part from the fact that she made more than 100 state visits during her 70 years on the throne, meeting presidents and prime ministers around the world in a reign that lasted from the Cold War to the information age.
\nPoliticians were eager to meet the monarch for tea, if for no other reason than she\u2019d been around so long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BERLIN King Charles III arrived in Berlin on Wednesday for his first foreign trip as Britain\u2019s monarch, hoping to improve the UK\u2019s relations with the European Union and to show that he can win hearts and minds abroad, just as his mother did for seven decades. Charles and Camilla, the queen consort, landed at Berlin\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322677,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-322663","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n