German President to visit Austria this week

New German President Christian Wulff will come to Vienna this Wednesday, the office of Austrian President Heinz Fischer has announced.

A spokeswoman for Fischer said today (Mon) that the former Christian Democratic (CDU) Minister President of Lower Saxony will stay in Vienna for a few hours.

She announced Fischer and Wulff will meet for talks and lunch before the German President continues his journey to Italy where he was set to meet President Giorgio Napolitano and Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on the same day.

Wulff was elected President of Germany last month. The conservative caused some stir by announcing that he planned to award German national football coach Joachim Löw with the Federal Cross of Merit.

“Löw is the one who selected and shaped this team. They achieved great things at this World Cup. That’s why I decided he deserved this honour,” he said as he visited the squad in South Africa on the weekend.

Germany finished the tournament in third after beating Uruguay on Saturday 3-2.

Löw’s predecessor Jürgen Klinsmann received the Federal Cross of Merit after the team achieved the same in the 2006 World Cup which took place in Germany.