Baerbock calls Cassis “Ignasco”

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The meeting of the foreign ministers of the German-speaking countries took place on Thursday in Salzburg, Austria – German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (42) and Federal Councilor Ignazio Cassis (62) also took part.

But despite the common language, understanding turned out to be more difficult than expected. In particular, Baerbock made a mistake, which Cassis repeatedly misaddressed in her statement to the media. She called him – the foreign ministers use his first name – “Ignasco” instead of Ignazio.

Not the first German blunder

It is not the first money that a German minister has shot at his Swiss colleague. At the World Economic Forum, which took place in Davos GR in January, Baerbock’s colleague, Economics Minister Robert Habeck (52), called newly elected Federal Councilor Albert Rösti (55) “Mr. Röstli”.

After all: Once upon a time, Baerbock got Cassis’s first name fairly correctly. The Swiss foreign minister is likely to have great sympathy for his German counterpart: on the one hand, the Ticino resident is used to non-Italian speakers having difficulty pronouncing his first name correctly.

Cassis also stumbled briefly

On the other hand, Cassis himself stumbled – he had to make several attempts to correctly pronounce the acronym for the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – OSCE. De Ticino immediately apologized: he had to speak many different languages. He sometimes gets confused with the various abbreviations. But he had no problem with the names of his counterparts. (sf)

Source:Blick