Germany Takes Over UN-GA for the First Time
NEW YORK, September 19 (C-Fam) The new President of the General Assembly is the former foreign minister of Germany, Annalena Baerbock. She is an avowed critic of President Trump and a proponent of abortion and gender ideology. In her new role, she will make key decisions on UN negotiations and reform that will impact the organization for years to come.
“Even when we face setbacks and frustrations. When diplomacy fails us, and consensus eludes us. We will unite to deliver for the people of the world. We will unite to defend the principles of this institution,” Baerbock said last week, as the new session of the General Assembly formally kicked off.
Despite promises of conciliation and compromise in May when she was elected, Baerbock vowed to advance progressive policies in her opening speech in the General Assembly, no matter the cost. She emphasized that this session of the General Assembly was not “ordinary” but a “make-or-break moment.”
The fact that Germany sought and obtained the presidency of the General Assembly for the first time in the body’s 80-year history is also noteworthy. It signals that Germany, as the leading economic and political force in the European Union, is no longer going to dictate Europe’s Foreign Policy from behind closed doors. They will do so in the open.
The phrasing Baerbock chose in her opening speech left little to the imagination. She was promising to push her polices through, despite any objections, by leveraging the vote and influence of the European Union. And it was also clear that her biggest obstacle is Trump.
Though she could not be overtly critical of Trump last week, Baerbock was vocally critical of the U.S. President before he was elected. She cast Trump alongside far-right neo-Nazis as “threats to democracy” in an interview published on the German Foreign Ministry’s website while she was the German Foreign Minister. She called Trump a “man who disparages public institutions and international alliances.”
The President of the General Assembly has the power to decide how key UN negotiations are conducted and concluded. This year, she will oversee the modalities of over a dozen negotiations, including the process to select the next UN Secretary General and a UN reform process that is expected to concentrate power in the UN Secretary General at the behest of the European Union.
Baerbeck rose to fame in March this year when she criticized U.S. President Donald Trump’s treatment of Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy at their White House meeting. According to Politico, she responded by saying, “A ruthless time has begun, in which we must defend the rules-based international order and the strength of law more than ever against the power of the strongest.” As President of the General Assembly, Baerbeck will be in a leading position to thwart Trump and promote the priorities of the European Commission.
In her role as Germany’s Foreign Minister, she published a Feminist Policy that includes promoting gender ideology and “sexual self-determination” as human rights under a broad woke agenda in the context of the UN negotiations.
“Feminist foreign policy is not foreign policy for women… it stands up for everyone who is pushed to societies’ margins because of their gender identity, origin, religion, age, disability, or sexual orientation or for other reasons,” reads the policy. “Using this compass, it begins by examining entrenched power structures in order to pry them open. In doing so, it is rooted in critical self-reflection about our own history, faces up to historical responsibility, including for our colonial past, and is open to learning from others.”
“Advocacy for the rights of LGBTQI+ individuals is an integral part of feminist foreign policy,” it proclaims emphatically, calling for “alliances to bolster and protect LGBTQI+ communities in Europe” and to confront “the pushback against gender equality and LGBTQI+ rights.” The policy also pledges 1 million Euros for LGBTQI+ human rights projects.
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