“At the end of the week, Chancellor Olaf Scholz will pay an official visit to three Gulf countries, especially Saudi Arabia, which has an energy crisis on its agenda,” said German government spokesman Steffen Hepstreit.

During a press conference, he explained that “the tour adviser, accompanied by a delegation of senior representatives from a number of economic sectors, will visit Saudi Arabia on Saturday, then on Sunday the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, before returning to Berlin in the evening.”

In this context, the spokesman did not elaborate on the topics to be discussed in the talks, but the energy crisis stemming from the Russian invasion of Ukraine is expected to come to the fore, given that “it is surprising that this particular issue has not been discussed.”

Earlier, German Economy Minister Robert Habeck visited Qatar and the UAE in search of alternatives to Russian gas, which before the war in Ukraine accounted for 55 percent of Germany’s gas imports.

Germany’s central bank warned on Monday that the “supply situation following the halt to imports from Russia will be very challenging in the coming months,” noting that Europe’s largest economy could contract.