No transfer to the UN
Merkel rejects job offer from New York
01/19/2022 11:56 am
Since the end of her 16-year term as chancellor, things have gone quiet around Angela Merkel. Even with a job offer from the United Nations, the politician does not speak up herself, but lets her office answer. The offer honors her, but there is no interest.
Former Chancellor Angela Merkel has turned down a job offer from UN Secretary-General António Guterres of New York. Merkel had “telephoned the UN Secretary-General last week, thanked him and informed him that she would not accept the offer,” said Merkel’s office in Berlin. Guterres had offered the 67-year-old the chair of a high-level advisory body on global public goods that could potentially serve the entire world population across national borders. Examples of global public goods are the ozone layer, but also, depending on the definition, internationally applicable regulations such as those on flight safety and global trade.
Even before the official cancellation, a change from the long-standing CDU chairmen to the United Nations was considered unlikely. The advisory body is one of the flagship projects of UN chief Guterres, who began his second term in early January.
In his report on changing the UN last year, Portugal’s former prime minister wrote that he would set up an advisory board “headed by former heads of state and government”. In his view, the corona pandemic has revealed major gaps in international cooperation. The envisaged advisory body should provide impetus for renewing practices and principles for action on a global level.
Since the handover of the Federal Chancellery to her successor Olaf Scholz at the beginning of December, Merkel has withdrawn from the public eye. Although the former chancellor maintains an office in the premises of the Bundestag near the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, she has not made any appearances since then. Her longtime office manager Beate Baumann told the “Spiegel” that Merkel is already working on an autobiography: “She would like to explain her central political decisions in her own words, and with reference to her life.” According to Baumann, the project is designed for two to three years.