“We need a fresh start in Germany, not just in climate protection, not just in the fight against inequalities, but also in foreign policy. ” Six days before the general elections, the interview given by Annalena Baerbock (Greens) to Die welt, on September 20, was one of the rare interventions by one of the three candidates for the chancellery focused on diplomatic and security issues. As the election approaches, some have deciphered an offer of service: knowing that her chances of succeeding Angela Merkel are minimal but that the hypothesis of seeing her party enter the government is very serious, the candidate of the Greens would already position herself in future foreign minister of a chancellor Olaf Scholz (SPD) – casting which she favors – or Armin Laschet (CDU-CSU) – solution to which she will resign herself.
Auswärtiges Amt for environmentalists? It would have an air of déjà vu: the Joschka Fischer years (1998-2005), Vice-Chancellor and Minister for Foreign Affairs of Gerhard Schröder (SPD). Founding years, marked by Germany’s participation in NATO’s intervention in Kosovo, in 1999. A double break in reality: for the country, since German soldiers had never intervened on European soil since. the Second World War ; for the ecologists, since this conversion was carried – painfully – by the party, par excellence, of pacifism and antimilitarism.
Multilateralism
This “moral” sensitivity remains present among the Greens. But it manifests itself today through the defense of multilateralism and democratic values in the face of authoritarian regimes. For the rest, even if they remain opposed to the objective of 2% of GDP devoted to the defense budget set by NATO to their allies, The Greens digested the Fischer “doctrine”, notably writing in their program that “The Bundeswehr must be equipped, in terms of personnel and materials, in order to be able to fulfill its mandates and missions with dignity”.
Annalena Baerbock herself likes to refer to the Fischer years. In June, she confided that the substantive debate sparked within the party by the intervention in Kosovo (“A debate between ideals and duties: never again war on one side, never again genocide on the other”) was “One of the reasons” of his commitment. In mid-August, it was alongside the candidate that the former foreign minister made his only campaign trip. The place was not chosen at random: the bridge that connects the small German town of Frankfurt-on-the-Oder to its Polish neighbor Slubice. Even where, on April 30, 2004, Joschka Fischer met his counterpart Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz to celebrate Poland’s entry into the EU. An event attended by around a hundred anonymous people, including a young 23-year-old woman, an intern with an environmental MEP: Annalena Baerbock.