In Hungary, several European leaders have gathered to commemorate the fall of the Iron Curtain twenty years ago. In the parliament in the capital Budapest, they stood in silence to remember the events of 27 June 1989.

On that day, the Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Horn, together with his Austrian counterpart Alois Mock, cut a stretch of barbed wire along the border between their two countries. The cutting of the wire was primarily of symbolic value, since Hungary had already begun to dismantle the border barriers on 2 May.

However, a few months later it offered 600 East German citizens, on holiday in Hungary, the chance to cross the border into West Germany.

The threat of an even bigger exodus then prompted the East German government to open the Berlin Wall later that year and it was this decision that signalled the end of the more than 40-year-old barrier between eastern and western Europe.

Speaking in Budapest’s parliament, German President Horst Köhler thanked the Hungarians, on behalf of all Germans, for their courage and solidarity.

Photo: grendelkhan (flickr)