Federal Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) has filled the top post that is still open in the Federal Foreign Office: Diplomat Tjorven Bellmann is to become the new Political Director, like the previous one Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung reported. She succeeds Jens Plötner, who has moved to Olaf Scholz in the Chancellery as a foreign and security policy advisor. Bellmann will thus steer German foreign policy in the future within the framework of the common foreign and security policy of the EU. In addition, she will be responsible for relations with North America, Russia, Ukraine and Eastern Europe as well as the Balkan and Caucasus countries and the states of Central Asia, as well as for fundamental security and defense policy issues.
For this job, which is tricky in view of the Russian troop deployment on the border with Ukraine, she brings experience from the past years with her – and a realistic picture of Russia’s military doctrine and the armament of modern weapon systems such as hypersonic gliders or medium-range missiles as well as the fundamental modernization of the nuclear arsenal.
Bellmann previously headed the Department for Security Policy and NATO in the Federal Foreign Office and rose to the position of Commissioner for Security Policy in 2019. At the beginning of last year, she also took on responsibility for relations with the USA, Great Britain, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland as well as Arctic policy – another area in which a lot revolves around the role of Russia.
Bellmann’s predecessors conducted the nuclear negotiations with Iran
The political director is one of the closest advisors to the foreign minister in her area of responsibility, but can also be given additional tasks. For example, the international negotiations on the nuclear deal with Iran, which are currently in progress again in Vienna, have so far been conducted on the German side by Bellmann’s predecessors, including the current ambassador to the USA, Emily Haber.
Bellmann is also familiar with the dossier from her time at the embassy in Tehran, as well as being used in the press department and from a different perspective by a post in Tel Aviv, where she worked for the then ambassador Andreas Michaelis. Baerbock has appointed the Greens member Michaelis, who had already served Joschka Fischer in various functions, next to Susanne Baumann as State Secretary for a second time. Bellmann is married to a diplomat and has three children.