Reception & Live TV-Broadcasting

„Barack Obama: The Inauguration of the 44th President of the USA"

Amerika Haus e.V. NRW, in cooperation with the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia, and the U.S. general consulate invited 500 American and German guests to celebrate the inauguration of the 44th President of the United States, Barack Obama. The reception and the following CNN live broadcast of the ceremony was the first event of this kind to take placein the state parliament building.

Its value is highly symbolic as it emphasized once again the economic partnership between North Rhine-Westphalia and the United States, as well as the American-German friendship especially. But illustrious guests such as Baroness von Oppenheim and Consul General, Matthew G. Boyse, also chinked glasses to commemorate the beginning of a new era.

“I expect a pragmatic and consensus-oriented foreign policy”, said Boyse and went on, “it is a good time for a new beginning.”

You could see that many other guests shared this opinion. Quite a few guests brushed one or two tears away during Obama’s swearing-in and felt united with the audience on site in Washington D.C.