Chancellor Shakes Hands With Robot for Forty Minutes as Berlin Ministries Adopt Handshake Protocol
At the federal digital summit, Friedrich Merz held the grip of a humanoid robot long enough for the government to draft a national handshake standard for its ministries.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz held the metal hand of a humanoid robot for so long at the federal digital summit in Berlin that the Chancellery has since ordered every ministry to adopt the same grip. The handshake, staged at the stand of the robotics firm Neura Robotics, lasted well beyond the customary three seconds, and officials confirmed that the Chancellor did not withdraw his hand until the machine had completed its full sequence.
The Chancellery says the summit, which runs for two days with government representatives, tech executives and researchers, has become a laboratory for the new national policy. Under a directive issued within hours, all federal authorities must now practise greeting humanoid machines at least once a week, with ministry staff rotated through a training hall in Berlin-Mitte to rehearse the grip. Digital minister Karsten Wildberger has personally supervised the first three sessions.
A government spokesperson said the initiative reflects the conviction that the human must remain at the centre. »We are not handing anyone a hand we have not first measured against our own,« the spokesperson said, adding that the robot's grip had been certified as weaker than a human one by a team of staff who had themselves shaken it several hundred times.
The summit's final report, presented on Thursday, sets a deadline of eighteen months to decide whether Germany keeps pace with the United States and China. Civil servants in several departments have already begun practising handshakes with each other in preparation, and the Chancellery has requested that the robot be permanently stationed in the lobby of the Federal Ministry of Digital Affairs to greet visitors.
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