President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed and Chancellor Friedrich Merz establish a strategic dialogue, sign 29 commercial deals, and condemn regional threats
BERLIN — The United Arab Emirates unveiled a €40 billion investment program in Germany on Thursday, anchoring a landmark state visit by UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan aimed at expanding cooperation in energy, artificial intelligence, and defense.
The three-day trip—running from September 9 to 11 at the invitation of German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier—marks the first official state visit by an Emirati head of state to Germany.
Following high-level talks in Berlin between Sheikh Mohamed and German Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz, both governments announced the creation of a permanent Strategic Dialogue format designed to overhaul and modernize their 2004 Comprehensive Strategic Partnership.
The €40 billion capital injection will focus primarily on German industrial competitiveness, clean energy transition projects, and high-tech digital architecture. Central to the investment is the planned construction of approximately 1 gigawatt of hyperscale data centers, establishing Germany as a core European digital hub for Emirati tech investments.
Alongside the overarching sovereign commitment, bilateral business delegations signed 29 commercial agreements valued at more than €9.356 billion. The commercial pipeline expands corporate joint ventures between industrial heavyweights including ADNOC, Masdar, RWE, and materials manufacturer Covestro—following XRG’s earlier €15 billion acquisition bid for Covestro.
Both leaders also welcomed the signing of a declaration creating a German-UAE Investment Council to coordinate future public and private capital flows. Bilateral non-oil trade expanded by 14 percent in 2025 to reach $15.5 billion, while cumulative investment flows between the nations surpassed $10 billion across the 2021–2025 period.
Bilateral mobility and infrastructure also saw immediate expansions. Under a revised air transport arrangement, Germany granted traffic rights allowing an Emirati national carrier to serve a fifth airport destination in Germany, supplementing existing scheduled routes. Travel processing will also streamline under a reciprocal protocol allowing UAE nationals access to Germany’s automated EasyPASS border gates.
On defense and national security, the two administrations signed letters of intent covering defense technology development and cross-border police cooperation, shifting their defense links toward mutual development and strategic security coordination.
The summit produced rare joint diplomatic positions on critical international crises. A comprehensive joint declaration condemned in the strongest terms recent aggression against the UAE and commercial shipping lanes by Iran, explicitly citing attacks on civilian infrastructure and the de facto obstruction of merchant traffic through the Strait of Hormuz. Merz and Sheikh Mohamed demanded that Tehran respect international navigational transit rights in line with United Nations Security Council Resolution 2817 (2026) and curb its ballistic missile and armed drone proliferation.
Addressing the war in Ukraine, Merz formally thanked the UAE for its intermediary diplomacy in brokering regular prisoner-of-war exchanges between Kyiv and Moscow, which reached a total of 7,997 detainees released to date. Both leaders called for an immediate maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea to secure global grain exports and confirmed joint funding for Ukrainian winter humanitarian relief, focused on decentralized energy networks.
On the Middle East, Berlin and Abu Dhabi reaffirmed their backing for an independent Palestinian state based on June 4, 1967 borders under a two-state solution, demanding the implementation of UN Security Council Resolution 2803 (2025) to achieve the complete disarmament of Hamas, an Israeli military withdrawal, and the post-war reconstruction of the Gaza Strip under a reformed Palestinian Authority.
