The co-chair of the German Greens, Annalena Baerbock, will become the country's new foreign minister and thus be the first woman to hold the post, her party announced Thursday evening.
The forty-year-old ecologist, his movement's unsuccessful candidate for the chancellery in the last legislative elections, will take office in early December as part of the government coalition formed on Wednesday with the Social Democrats and the Liberals, to open the post-Merkel era in the country.
Read also Germany: Christian Lindner, a fiscal hawk in Finance
The Greens have also announced that their other co-president, Robert Habeck, will head a
“super ministry”
bringing together Climate and Economy.
Annalena Baerbock will replace Social Democrat Heiko Maas at the Foreign Ministry.
She will also be the youngest person to hold the post in German history.
During the recent electoral campaign, the environmental official had promised to breathe new life into German diplomacy, in particular by adopting a firmer tone vis-à-vis Russia and China.
The European Union needs
"a strong, open but active German foreign policy"
, argued Annalena Baerbock in May before the thinktank Atlantic Council.
Opposed to the Nordstream 2 gas pipeline, which should make it possible to transport Russian gas, this lawyer specializing in international law believes that
"another approach vis-à-vis authoritarian regimes" is "a key question"
for the future government,
" for our safety and for our values ”.
