Annalena Baerbock at the G7: “That’s the job of a foreign minister” – politics

For Annalena Baerbock, the first 72 hours in office as Federal Foreign Minister are a great ride through her new area of ​​responsibility. After the inaugural visits to Paris, the EU and NATO in Brussels on Thursday and in Warsaw on Friday, she is working on an agenda at the G-7 foreign ministers’ meeting in Liverpool at the weekend that the hosts announced as “jam-packed” with British understatement was. “I am pleased that, after my bilateral talks, I can get into multilateral business immediately this weekend,” says Baerbock.

On Saturday, the working sessions are so closely timed that a topic has to be pushed from the morning into the afternoon. The ministers deal with the whole range of “current geopolitical challenges”, as diplomats call them: Russia and China dominate the morning, the question of whether human rights violations in the People’s Republic can be countered with a diplomatic boycott of the Winter Olympics, as the USA did want.

Or how to stop President Vladimir Putin from invading Ukraine. “That would have enormous economic and political consequences,” says Baerbock and adds: “We want to do everything we can to ensure that this does not happen, but that we can return to the negotiating table together with Russia.”

Also on the agenda on Saturday alone: ​​the situation in Afghanistan, the Tigray conflict in Ethiopia, Libya, Sudan, the Western Balkans. And of course also the fight against the corona pandemic. The program is so tight that the Foreign Minister has a couple of cheat sheets in hand when she makes a first statement that afternoon. Dealing with Iran and its nuclear program was also on the agenda.

Baerbock speaks of “very, very difficult and halting negotiations in Vienna”. At the same time as the meeting in Liverpool, high-ranking European diplomats are talking to the Iranian chief negotiator Ali Bagheri-Kani in Vienna about the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal, from which US President Donald Trump withdrew in 2018. Unfortunately, according to Baerbock, it has become clear in the past few days that we are not really making headway, but that Tehran’s offer is such that we are “falling behind by six months”.

It could be the next major crisis in a moment if Vienna does not make progress soon. But they are a long time coming. Iran has “massively lost trust” through its behavior, says Baerbock. They are sticking to a diplomatic solution, but Iran must act now. “We are running out of time,” warns the Foreign Minister.

The meeting in Liverpool is also something of a speed dating for the foreign ministers of the seven largest western industrial nations. Not only Baerbock is new to the job. The Japanese Yoshimasa Hayashi, the Canadian Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly and host Liz Truss have each been in office for less than three months.

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Russian head of department Sergei Lavrov has served the Kremlin more than twice as long as the terms of office of all G7 foreign ministers added up. Of course, the Frenchman Jean-Yves Le Drian and US Secretary of State Tony Blinken are also veterans of the diplomatic business.

Both are clearly trying to get their colleague from Berlin, who will take over the chairmanship of the G-7 round in a few weeks at the turn of the year. One would meet more often in the next few days, Baerbock had said in Paris. Now she can already be seen in a familiar conversation with Le Drian – no time to arrive. “That is the job of a foreign minister,” says Baerbock laconically. She did not want to be represented, but came to Liverpool in person and met the “decisive foreign ministers”. On Monday it will continue in Brussels with EU colleagues at the Council for Foreign Relations.

Blinken had already showered her with friendliness on Friday evening during a bilateral conversation. “It’s wonderful” to meet her in person, he said. The two had already spoken on the phone on Wednesday. The relationship, the “partnership between our countries is so vital, and we have a lot to talk about,” he said, before quickly giving Baerbock a picture of how the United States currently sees the world.

There was also an encounter with the Briton Truss on Friday. The two had emphasized the importance of defending and expanding democracy and freedom in the world, the London Foreign Office said – and “to oppose autocratic regimes that endanger the free world”. In the conversation, however, Truss got involved with the Northern Ireland Protocol, which was supposed to prevent border controls between the EU member Ireland and the British part of the island after Brexit. She would like the EU to provide “pragmatic solutions”, she said to the German head of department. A lot of expectations are placed on them in those first few days. “I suppose you feel like I did when I took on these tasks,” said Blinken – “the inbox is pretty full.”