Germany to nominate Annalena Baerbock for UN General Assembly presidency

Berlin is set to nominate Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock for the presidency of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for the 2025/26 term, a government source has said.

"The German government intends to nominate... Baerbock as the German candidate for the presidency of the UN General Assembly in 2025/26," the source confirmed, Caliber.Az reports via Western media.

Under internal UN agreements, the next president is to be selected from the Western Europe and Others Group, with Germany having the right to put forward a candidate. The formal decision on the presidency will be made in early June.

Baerbock, 44, has served as Germany's foreign minister since 2021. However, with her Greens party expected to lose power following February’s elections, her role in domestic politics is set to change. The conservative CDU/CSU alliance, which won the most seats in the elections, is currently in coalition negotiations with Chancellor Olaf Scholz's Social Democrats (SPD).

If confirmed, Baerbock will assume the UNGA presidency in September for a one-year term, overseeing procedural matters such as directing plenary sessions. While largely ceremonial compared to the position of UN secretary-general, the presidency plays a key role in managing the General Assembly’s agenda.

Baerbock holds a degree in political science and public law from Hanover and a master’s in public international law from the London School of Economics. She became Germany’s first female foreign minister in 2021 when the Greens joined a three-way coalition with the SPD and the Free Democratic Party (FDP).

The current UNGA president is Philemon Yang, a former prime minister of Cameroon.

By Khagan Isayev