The leaders of Germany and Hungary are expected to discuss trade and energy issues at a meeting in Budapest Tuesday. Also on the agenda for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's visit is the new negotiating effort aimed at resolving Kosovo's postwar status and the demands of the province's ethnic Albanians for independence from Serbia. Merkel will meet with President Laszlo Solyom, Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany and other senior officials on the one-day visit. She will also deliver a speech at Budapest's German-language Gyula Andrassy University. Germany is Hungary's largest trading partner, accounting for roughly 30 percent of its exports and 28 percent of its imports. Hungarian exports to Germany in the first five months of 2007 totaled ¤8.1 billion (US$10.9 billion) while imports from Germany stood at ¤7.6 billion (US$10.2 billion). Merkel's talks were also expected to touch on efforts to forge a common energy policy for the European Union. Gyurcsany's foreign policy adviser, Karoly Banai, said Kosovo was a «decisive question,» and as such would likely be discussed Tuesday, according to Hungary's state news agency MTI. Serbia's Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica is to visit Hungary at the end of September. Kosovo, formally remains a southern province of Serbia, though the territory has been a NATO and U.N. protectorate since the end of the war between Serb forces and ethnic Albanian separatists in 1999. On Wednesday, Merkel will travel to London to meet with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and watch the England-Germany soccer friendly at Wembley stadium.
