Berlin: Several publications reported on Tuesday that Annalena Baerbock, the leader of the Green Party, has developed a platform for "feminist foreign policy." Berlin's redesigned diplomacy will incorporate "gender issues" into everything from humanitarian aid and energy policy to climate change, according to information that will be made public later this week.
"A feminist foreign policy is something we are pursuing because it is desperately needed. Because there is still a gender disparity everywhere," Baerbock wrote, according to Politico Europe.
Ten main principles are outlined in the 80-page report, according to the German news agency DPA. Offering "gender-sensitive" humanitarian aid is one of them, as is including "women and marginalised groups" in economic development and taking "gender issues" into account when formulating climate and energy policy.
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According to reports, Baerbock wrote that the measures are meant to "shape our inner workings and help us to form a 'feminist reflex'," contending that one of the foreign ministry's objectives ought to be to "measurably advance gender equality worldwide." A new position of "ambassador for feminist foreign policy" is another thing she wants to establish.
By her definition, however, feminism policy is not just for women, but also for those "marginalised by society on the basis of gender identity, origin, religion, age, disability, sexual orientation or other reasons."
Therefore, by the end of the legislative cycle, the Foreign Ministry plans to spend 8% of project funds in a way that "actively challenges gender norms" in addition to using 85% of project funds in a "gender-sensitive" manner.
In the "traffic light coalition," which also includes the Social Democrats of Chancellor Olaf Scholz and the Free Democrats, are Baerbock's Greens. But the opposition has already retaliated. Her plan is "incomprehensible," according to Markus Soeder, the head of the CSU party in Bavaria, who also told the Mediengruppe Bayern that "travelling the world and telling everyone else what they should and should not do is doomed to failure."
It has already been requested by Soeder that Scholz fire Baerbock before she poses a "security risk." Over the past few months, the foreign minister has made a number of undiplomatic mistakes, mostly in relation to the conflict in Ukraine, which has reportedly prompted Scholz's office to keep "careful track" of her errors.
Baerbock made headlines in August 2022 when she declared to an EU conference in Prague that she would keep her promises to Ukraine "no matter what my German voters think."
Baerbock stated that since "we are fighting a war against Russia," EU members should refrain from fighting among themselves during a discussion on sending more weapons to Ukraine last month in the European Parliament. She later apologised for saying that, but she continued to insist that the "propaganda of the Russian regime" intentionally misinterpreted her comments and took them out of context.
After stating at the Munich Security Conference in mid-February that Moscow's policy needed to "change by 360 degrees," Baerbock earned the moniker "connoisseur of geometry" from former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.