For all those who had doubts after the BBC’s James Coomarasamy put him to the test last September: Germany’s Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle actually does speak English.
And he proved a sense of humour when the new British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and Foreign Secretary William Hague came on their first visit to Berlin this week. (more…)
The Federal Government is apparently worried about an “Eastern bloc” that has emerged in the European Union and that has an increasingly “anti-integrationist” stance.
That is why the Federal Government is trying to re-activate the “Weimar Triangle” these days.
The German-Franco-Polish triangle, established in the 1990s to facilitate Poland’s accession into the European Union, was hardly visible over the last years.
On 1 February 2010, Minister of State Werner Hoyer met his counterparts Pierre Lellouche and Mikołaj Dowgielewicz in Warsaw.
The initiative goes along with new Franco-German initiatives announced by Chancellor Merkel and President Sarkozy at a joint government meeting in Paris on 4 February 2010. Take a look at the “Agenda 2020″.
Btw, a couple of days before the French and German governments announced their ritualized list, London published a long-awaited security and defense document in which it chooses Paris as its major partner for future military co-operation (FT, 3 February 2010).
Chancellor Angela Merkel announced a “development offensive for Afghanistan” on Tuesday morning. The package, hammered out in controversial meetings between the Chancellery, the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of the Interior over the last days, will be Germany’s agenda for the Afghanistan conference starting in London later this week.
The German contribution (described rather misleading as a “new strategy” in the media) consists of three pillars. (more…)
With politics still in the summer break, I want to take a look at one of Berlin’s FP protagonists, the Foreign Office, or Auswärtiges Amt. Functional title with regard to both content and sound.
What I like about Ministries of Foreign Affairs is that their name, location, architecture, their access regimes and social rules are so revealing of the country they represent. In London, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is in fact a “Foreign and Commonwealth Office”, residing in the old Indian Office. Make an appointment, walk in, get your photo taken and get a feel for the British Empire. In Washington, expect an in-advance security clearance. Makes you feel the superpower. Otherwise, what you will find at the State Department has a functional feel. Paris, the Quai d’Orsay, “L’Hôtel du ministre des affaires étrangères”. Mid-19th century French pomp. Beijing. Once experienced a wonderfully stiff, old fashioned protocol on a delegation visit. In Berlin, the Auswärtiges Amt opened its doors for its annual open door day last weekend. (more…)
The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives in Berlin today. Coming from London, where he met with PM Gordon Brown and the US envoy Geoge Mitchell (see the BBC reporting), Netanjahu will meet with President Horst Köhler, Chancellor Angela Merkel and Foreign Minister Steinmeier during his two-day visit.
The visit is part of a new joint US-European initiative on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On top of the agenda of the talks in London and Berlin are the settlements and Iran. The Guardian reported that Israel might agree on a settlement freeze in exchange for tougher sanctions on Iran over its nuclear programme by the international community.