Merkel makes second visit to Ethiopia, declines to address the house of peoples’ representatives

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is set to embark on her second tour of Ethiopian capital next Tuesday. Merkel will first travel to Mali and Niger before heading to Ethiopia where she is to visit the headquarters of the African Union in Addis Ababa. Her talks with leaders of all three countries are to focus on migration issues and the battle against jihadist groups. Merkel is meeting the Ethiopian Prime Minister Hailemarim Desalegn during her second visit to the country, a country that is going through delicate political crisis. Merkel will open a new African Union complex built with German funding, according to Germany’s international broadcaster, DW. Merkel is to deliver a speech to African Union officials and hold talks with chairperson of the African Union Commission Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. The German chancellor also wants to get an impression of the situation in Ethiopia for herself by talking to government officials and civil society representatives.
According to the weekly Reporter newspaper, Angela Merkel declined to address the Ethiopian house of peoples’ representatives, which will return from recess for the second year term of the fifth parliament. The paper quoted reliable sources as saying that, though Ethiopian authorities requested the head of the German federal government to address legislators, Merkel declined because “it is a one-party-dominated parliament and did not see the point in doing so”.