The Ministry of Foreign Affairs under Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul is undertaking a fundamental restructuring. The top priority is “increasing our effectiveness in the areas of security policy, international order and economic development and security,” state secretaries Géza Andreas von Geyr and Bernhard Kotsch said in a letter to employees, which was also made available to the dpa news agency. By the end of the Bundestag’s current legislative term in 2029, it is estimated that around 570 positions will be created, mainly in the central office. Berlindeleted.
“Anyone who wants to prepare effectively to meet the great challenges of the 21st century and shape a security- and economic-based foreign policy must set their own priorities more clearly and boldly,” the secretary of state wrote. The actions of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs must be consistently aligned with the interests and objectives of German and European foreign and security policy.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has almost 3,100 employees at its headquarters and 3,200 employees in about 230 German representative offices abroad. There are also nearly 5,600 local employees. Which is encouraged restructuring is also the basis for certain savings of eight percent in jobs, write von Geyr and Kotsch. This would “result in the loss of a large number of positions.”
Newly adjusted state departments
At headquarters Foreign Office In Berlin, the competencies that shape bilateral relations with countries are combined in partially newly designed regional country departments: Europe, Americas, Asia/Pacific, Near and Middle East/Africa. The core competences of security policy – from Germany’s role in NATO, the EU and OSCE to disarmament and arms export control to cyber security – are brought together in the security policy department.
European policy, foreign trade, energy and climate are combined in the EU’s political and geoeconomic departments. In addition to tasks in the field of the UN and human rights, humanitarian assistance is integrated into the Department of International Order.
This new structure should be in place by the general transfer date of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs next summer. This “is perhaps the largest structural reform of the State Department in decades,” von Geyr and Kotsch wrote. The goal is to adapt to developments in past decades, “but especially to the dramatic trends that are occurring today.” The changes taking place on the continent and in the world “are affecting us very quickly. They require changes in the way we work.”
