Minister President Manuela Schwesig meets her Saxon counterpart Michael Kretschmer in Schwerin and Rostock

Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania's Minister President Manuela Schwesig (SPD) will meet with her Saxon counterpart Michael Kretschmer (CDU) in Schwerin on Thursday (09:00). The meeting will begin with a meeting in the castle with campaigners for Schwerin's World Heritage bid. Their efforts to have the ensemble of residences included on the coveted UNESCO list were crowned with success the previous week, as was Saxony's application with the Moravian Church in Herrnhut.

After the short ceremony in the castle, Schwesig and Kretschmer will travel on to Rostock, where they plan to sign agreements on closer cooperation in tourism and the establishment of a joint research institute. Even before his trip to the north, Kretschmer had reminded his fellow countrymen of their preference for vacations on the Baltic Sea. According to surveys, Saxony is the most important source market for the tourism industry in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. According to the state tourism association, 13.4 percent of the total of around eleven million guests came from Saxony in 2023.

Contacts in science and research are also to be expanded. For example, experts from the University of Rostock and the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf are planning to establish a joint institute dedicated to basic research in the field of nuclear fusion and plasma production using lasers.