Every year in the summer, the Federal Foreign Office has a uniform transfer date. Between May and September, the diplomats will take up their new posts in the diplomatic missions abroad or at the Werderscher Markt headquarters. This year there are no fewer than eight posts in the ambassador carousel at the politically significant and prestigious B9 salary grade: Washington, London, Beijing, Delhi, Tel Aviv, Warsaw, Madrid and Mexico City.
Competing for the coveted jobs in the house of Green Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock included: a ousted state secretary, a former government spokesman, various top diplomats. And someone who started his career with the attaché training in the office, but had switched to politics for a long time. And when the offices in the traffic light coalition were awarded nothing: the member of the Bundestag Alexander Graf Lambsdorff from the FDP.
Party leader Christian Lindner showed neither interest in complaining to the Foreign Office for the Liberals nor to the Ministry for Economic Cooperation. But he didn’t want to refuse the high-profile foreign politician Lambsdorff’s wish to become ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary – in Washington, probably still the most important foreign mission.
It is not uncommon for politicians or top officials who have left the service to switch to ambassadorships. Annette Schavan from the CDU, for example, became the representative of the Federal Republic to the Holy See, also B9, as well as the job at the UN mission in Geneva, which Foreign Minister Heiko Maas bequeathed to his office manager Katharina Stasch. However, the appointments have to go through the cabinet, and the decision is made by consensus.
The personnel carousel has been stuck since January
Baerbock did not want to give the coalition partner a central post as ambassador, but according to reports Lambsdorff did not want to be fobbed off with alternatives either. That’s why the carousel got stuck since January, so that some who already had a ticket didn’t know until the very end where the journey would lead. Most recently, the personnel package was with Chancellor Wolfgang Schmidt (SPD). But now a solution has been found with which many of those involved should be satisfied – except for Lambsdorff.
In the USA, according to information, the Southgerman newspaper the political decision is to extend the respected cross-party ambassador Emily Haber, who is actually reaching the age limit but is not retiring from the foreign service. For the Green Andreas Michaelis, who was brought back to Berlin as State Secretary, the SPD-affiliated Miguel Berger, who was replaced by Baerbock, will go to Great Britain. Steffen Seibert, Angela Merkel’s media envoy for more than eleven years, is to represent the federal government in Israel; Chancellor Olaf Scholz had promised his predecessor such a use.
In Spain, Maria Gosse, Head of the Central Department of the Federal Foreign Office, will replace Ambassador Wolfgang Dold, who is moving to Mexico. Thomas Bagger, most recently head of the foreign department in the Office of the Federal President, will assume the post in Poland. Philipp Ackermann, previously head of Political Department 3, which is responsible for relations with 110 countries in the Near and Middle East, Africa and Latin America, is to be sent to India. In China, Patricia Flor is to succeed Jan Hecker, who died a few days after taking office in September and was Merkel’s security adviser before his transfer. Flor is currently EU ambassador to Japan. Lambsdorff, on the other hand, is not considered in this round.