Ambassadors’ Conference in Berlin
More than 200 heads of German missions abroad are meeting for an Ambassadors’ Conference at the Federal Foreign Office to discuss German foreign policy.
Under the motto ‘Improving foreign policy’ more than 200 heads of German missions abroad, representatives of foreign embassies as well as from politics, the economic and the cultural sectors will be coming to the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin. The 14th Ambassadors’ Conference will be taking place in the city from 24 until 27 August 2015. On the four conference days there will be more than 50 individual events offering the chance to discuss German foreign policy.
The Ambassadors’ Conference will be linking up with the Federal Foreign Office’s dialogue with foreign and security policy decision makers and civil society representatives last year. In spring 2015 Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier presented the results of the twelve-month process ‘Review 2014 – Thinking ahead in foreign policy’. He said that the Federal Foreign Office is now in the 18-month implementation phase. And he explained: “During the review process under the motto ‘Thinking ahead in foreign policy’ the next stage will be concerned with ‘Improving foreign policy’’”.
‘Crisis, order, and how to shape them’
The main theme of the Ambassadors’ Conference ‘Crisis, order, and how to shape them’ takes up both the main areas of the Federal Foreign Office’s work as well as policy shaping beyond current trouble spots. For instance, the participants will be discussing how the existing order of the United Nations can be maintained and further developed, or how Germany should behave towards Islamist para-state developments.
The workshops have been designed in keeping with discussion formats that were tested in the review process. In the Gallery Walk working groups will be presenting their results based on a circuit training model, and in the Fishbowl the group will be divided into discussion participants and observers. The organisers are hoping that this will inspire the exchange of ideas and interaction. The results will then flow into decision-making processes about foreign political areas of activity and the operative steering of the Federal Foreign Office and the missions abroad.
The conference will begin with impulses from Federal Foreign Minister Steinmeier and Parag Khanna who is an expert for international relations in the think tank The New America Foundation. On the second day the Ambassadors’ Conference will be open to economic representatives. More than 1000 top decision makers from industry, small and medium-sized enterprises and start-ups are expected. Under the motto ‘The world in action’, representatives from the economic sector will be discussing with leading members of German diplomacy about challenges in global markets that result from foreign political developments.
Ambassadors’ Conference at the Federal Foreign Office from 24 to 27 August 2015
