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Mayors seal the twinning in England
Königstein – It has been decided and announced: Königstein has officially had four international town twinnings with the small English town of Faringdon since Sunday.
With their signatures on the relevant twinning documents, Königstein’s mayor Leonhard Helm (CDU) and his honorary British counterpart Peter Castle sealed what had been initiated on both sides of the English Channel for a good year and now wants to be maintained and expanded. And not only in the interests of the two cities, but also with a view to pan-European coexistence.
How important this is today was underlined by the head of the town hall, Helm, on Sunday at the actual marriage ceremony in the former Faringdon Corn Exchange, which is now used as an event hall. Helm drew the link back to 2015, when he and a delegation from the spa town were guests in the small English town for the first time. The occasion was the 25th anniversary of the partnership between Faringdon and the Norman municipality of Le Mêle-sur-Sarthe.
The people of Königstein were – since they were also related to Le Mêle – “only” very welcome onlookers and a German-British connection was not really an issue. Nevertheless, according to the head of the town hall, a feeling of unity was already felt there. At the time, nothing seemed able to shake the new, peaceful coexistence in Europe.
“Welcome every second”
Eight years later, however, the world is completely different. Brexit took Great Britain out of the EU, Russia brought the war back to Europe and fueled the East-West conflict that was believed to be over. “We feel that our world is changing,” emphasized Helm. It is all the more important to uphold friendship and cohesion in Europe. Precisely because the United Kingdom is no longer formally part of Europe, it is important not to turn away from the people there. But on the contrary. It is important to turn to each other even more. The fact that this desire is equally present and strong among Königsteiners and Farangdonians – that, the head of town hall says gratefully, was noticeable right from the start at the weekend. “We felt welcome every second,” stated Helm, in connection with the warm invitation to the new friends for a return visit in the Taunus – at the latest for the Christmas market, but also earlier.
2023-07-04 17:51:25
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