A.Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) has filled two top positions in the Foreign Office (AA) with female diplomats. As it became known on Monday, Tjorven Bellmann, who was previously responsible for security policy at the Foreign Office, is to become the new Political Director, while Sibylle Sorg, who previously headed the Crisis Prevention and Stabilization Department, is moving to the position of Europe Director.
The appointments are part of a larger personnel reorganization that Baerbock has reportedly ordered one month after taking office. The management of the Foreign Ministry is also being restructured. At the side of State Secretary Susanne Baumann, who was appointed to this position at the beginning of December and succeeds Antje Leendertse (she is now the German ambassador to the United Nations), the previous ambassador in London, Andreas Michaelis, will be joining the team. Michaelis already assumed the position of State Secretary in the Foreign Ministry in the years 2018 to 2020.
Michaelis’s career is linked to Fischer
He had previously been Political Director of the Foreign Office for three years, before that there was a time as Ambassador to Israel. Michaelis belongs to the small group of diplomats whose career in office is linked to the time of the first green German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer; he served Fischer from 1998 to 2002, first as deputy spokesman, then as spokesman for the ministry.
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The new Political Director Bellmann also once went through the AA press office. She is a trained Islamic scholar and has been stationed in both Iran and Israel during her career. Bellmann’s area of responsibility as head of the political department includes responsibility for the nuclear negotiations with Iran, which her predecessor Jens Plötner was previously in charge of. Plötner moved to the Chancellery as a foreign policy advisor to Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD).
The new European director, Sorg, had been concerned with Germany’s relations with the EU member states for several years. At that time she played a key role in the formulation of the “Treaty of Aachen”, the new Franco-German friendship treaty that has existed for two years.
Your previous crisis prevention department will be taken over by Ricklef Beutin, who, among other things, served as office manager of Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel (SPD) and as head of the cabinet department. Günter Sautter will head the Department for United Nations (UN) and Disarmament Issues, returning from New York after one and a half years from the position of Deputy Head of the German UN Representation.
Ralf Beste, who was previously the German ambassador in Vienna and a close associate of the then Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD), is moving into the free position at the head of the cultural department, which arose when the previous head, Andreas Görgen, moved to the Chancellery was. Best accompanied German foreign policy for many years as a correspondent for the magazine “Der Spiegel”.