Christoph Heusgen

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Christoph Heusgen (right) with the then Bulgarian Foreign Minister Kristian Wigenin (March 2014)

Christoph Heusgen (born March 17, 1955 in Düsseldorf-Heerdt ) is a German civil servant and diplomat . From 2005 he was the foreign and security policy advisor to Chancellor Angela Merkel and has been the permanent representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations since July 2017 . In April 2019 and July 2020, he also headed the meetings of the UN Security Council as President .

Life

Heusgen grew up in Neuss . His parents ran a pharmacy there. After graduating from Quirinus-Gymnasium Neuss in 1973, he studied economics from 1973 to 1977 at the University of St. Gallen and at the Georgia Southern University in Statesboro . By 1980 he completed postgraduate studies in St. Gallen and at the Sorbonne in Paris. In 1980 he received his doctorate in St. Gallen on the subject of “ Ludwig Erhard's theory of the social market economy. Origins, core content, changes ”. He is married to the doctor and lawyer in the diplomatic service Ina Heusgen and has four children; two of them come from their first marriage. Heusgen is considered a close confidante of Chancellor Merkel and is a member of the CDU.

career

In 1980 he joined the Foreign Service in what was then the federal capital of Bonn . From 1983 to 1986 he held a position at the Consulate General in Chicago, where he was responsible for business and the press. From 1986 to 1988 he was stationed at the embassy in Paris. From 1988 to 1990 he was personal assistant to the coordinator for German-French cooperation Rainer Barzel (CDU) at the Foreign Office in Bonn and from 1990 to 1993 he was assistant and deputy head of the EU policy department. From 1993 to 1997 Heusgen worked under Thomas Matussek as deputy head in the ministerial office of Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel (FDP), after which he was head of the sub-department Europe as ministerial director. From 1999 to 2005 was Heusgen the General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in Brussels bureau chief and head of the Policy Unit of Javier Solana , then High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the EU.

From November 2005, he was Ministerial Director of Department 2 responsible for foreign policy in the Federal Chancellery and was thus the foreign and security policy advisor to Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel ( CDU ). In July 2017, Heusgen succeeded Harald Braun as Permanent Representative of the Federal Republic of Germany to the United Nations . After the 2017 federal election, Merkel appointed the lawyer Jan Hecker as the new foreign policy advisor.

Awards

criticism

In November 2017, Der Spiegel reported that Heusgen had in an email to Maria Luiza Ribeiro Viotti , the head of cabinet of UN Secretary General António Guterres, about a position at the P5 salary (at least $ 107,459 gross and $ 56,000 net New York surcharge ) asked for his wife in his office. He pointed out that Germany made a major contribution to the UN. In the email, he stated that his wife's strengths were that she had "a direct line to the Chancellery and the Office of the Foreign Minister (and to Germany's future ambassador to the UN, who has the ambition to sit on the Security Council in 2019/2020)" have. The Spiegel interpreted this as a violation of the limit of propriety. Ina Heusgen has been working as a consultant in the peacekeeping operations department since August 2017. The Foreign Office described her to Der Spiegel as "highly qualified" and the ideal person for the post.

Heusgen was placed 7th in the list of “10 worst incidents of anti-Semitic behavior” by the Simon Wiesenthal Center in 2019 . He was accused of unilateral anti-Israel voting behavior as Germany's representative at the UN, as well as a speech in which he compared rockets launched by the radical Islamic Hamas targeting Israel to the Israeli bulldozers that destroy cleared Palestinian houses. Germany voted against Israel seven times in eight resolutions. The federal government defended Heusgen against the criticism: "It is absurd to associate our ambassador to the United Nations Heusgen with anti-Semitism," said the deputy spokesman for the Foreign Office, Rainer Breul, expressly on behalf of Foreign Minister Heiko Maas and the whole Federal government. Ambassador Heusgen is an excellent diplomat who is just as committed to security and historical ties to Israel as the Federal Republic of Germany. Heusgen represented the position of the federal government in all votes and acted on instructions from Berlin.

The Israeli ambassador to Germany, Jeremy Issacharoff , also defended Heusgen against accusations of anti-Semitism. “We may sometimes have differences on political issues. But that doesn't mean that someone is anti-Semitic if they don't agree with us, ”said Issacharoff. The political differences between Germany and Israel should not be dealt with on a personal level; you have to continue discussing the content. Such “really completely inappropriate accusations” would only complicate the discussion. Jason Greenblatt , Special Envoy of the United States for international negotiations, however, criticized in the world especially Heusgens remark occasion one abstention at the Middle East -Resolution the USA, Germany think "not to the law of the jungle" in contrast to the United States.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The Permanent Representative. Permanent Mission of Germany to the United Nations, accessed on December 30, 2018 .
  2. ^ Spiegel.de: German UN ambassador disillusioned with work in the Security Council
  3. ↑ https://rp-online.de/nrw/staedte/neuss/heimatfreunde-ehren-un-botschafter_aid-17931269 (accessed on December 29, 2018)
  4. ↑ http://d-nb.info/810244950
  5. ↑ https://www.munzinger.de/search/go/document.jsp?id=00000025589
  6. ↑ "A Neusser explains the world to Merkel" rp-online from January 14, 2014
  7. ^ CV: "Ambassador Dr. Christoph Heusgen" new-york-un.diplo.de
  8. ↑ FAZ.net: Much more than an internal implementation
  9. ↑ List of all decorations awarded by the Federal President for services to the Republic of Austria from 1952 (PDF; 6.9 MB)
  10. ↑ Claudia Ehrenstein, Robin Alexander: Talking is going on at Schlossplatz . In: Die Welt , October 17, 2015, No. 242, p. 8.
  11. ↑ Endowed with $ 88,351. With presumptuous e-mail: Merkel's confidante gives wife well-paid UN posts. Focus, November 17, 2017, accessed November 18, 2017.
  12. ↑ Rafael Buschmann, Jürgen Dahlkamp, ​​Gunther Latsch, Jörg Schmitt and Christoph Schult, Ambassador Heusgen: "... that my wife Ina gets a job in your office" , Der Spiegel, November 18, 2017, accessed November 18, 2017.
  13. ↑ SWC "2019 Top Ten worst global anti-semitic and anti-Israel incidents" list
  14. ↑ Benjamin Weinthal: German UN ambassador makes list of worst antisemitic incidents. In: Jerusalem Post. December 12, 2019, accessed December 12, 2019 .
  15. ↑ Christoph Heusgen on Anti-Semitism List , Jüdische Allgemeine, December 12, 2019. Accessed December 14, 2019.
  16. ↑ Israel's Ambassador Protects Heusgen , Jüdische Allgemeine, December 15, 2019. Retrieved December 15, 2019.
  17. ↑ Jason Greenblatt: With all due respect, Mr. Ambassador Heusgen ... , Welt, August 8, 2019.
  18. ↑ Israel's ambassador defends UN diplomat Heusgen. Der Tagesspiegel, December 18, 2019, accessed on April 13, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Heusgen, Christoph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German diplomat
DATE OF BIRTH March 17, 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH Dusseldorf