Foreign affairs minister Carmelo Abela joined European counterparts on Saturday at a ceremony marking the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

EU foreign ministers, joined by US acting assistant secretary of state Philip T. Reeker, attended a reception in Berlin followed a ceremony and concert by German and international artists at the Brandenburg Gate.

The ceremony included an address by German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and was attended by thousands of people including Chancellor Angela Merkel and other dignitaries.

In a letter to his German counterpart to mark the occasion, Mr Abela described the fall of the Berlin Wall as a "significant historical achievement not only for Germany but also for the whole European region" which he said had "initiated the beginning of a new European era characterised by freedom and democracy".

“Malta’s longstanding excellent bilateral relations with Germany have incessantly been guided by these same democratic European values and our common joint pursuit towards achieving peace and stability not only within the region but also within the international scenario," Mr Abela said. 

The Maltese foreign minister was accompanied by Malta’s ambassador to Germany, Albert Friggieri, with whom he visited a section of the Berlin Wall that remains standing.

Remarking that people are not only able to build walls of division but also to bring them down, he recalled how, only a few weeks after the Berlin Wall came down, former US and USSR leaders, George H.W. Bush and Mikhail Gorbachev, held a historic summit in Malta during which the Cold War was officially ended.