Nearly all 3,000 employees at the Foreign Office are set to receive new email addresses as the ministry embarks on a massive internal restructuring. Initiated by Minister Johann Wadephul (CDU), the new organizational structure involves renaming every working unit in the central offices. Those whose departments move to different sections must change their workspaces come the autumn.
The reform mandates that entire departments will be either dissolved, merged, or newly tailored. According to the Foreign Office, four subordinate departments and nine sections will be eliminated. Key changes include the Political Director losing several country responsibilities. For example, the US/Canada section is moving into the new Americas department, which will unify North and Latin America for the first time. Responsibility for Russia and Ukraine will now fall under the Europe department.
While experienced diplomats view the newly defined role of the Political Director as a weakening of the position, the office insists that the job maintains a central role in coordinating all security policy issues at the departmental head level. Dominik Mutter currently holds the title.
According to reporting, the reform is principally driven by the two state secretaries, Géza Andreas von Geyr and Bernhard Kotsch, though their plans have generated some friction. Criticism within the ministry suggests that because Geyr and Kotsch have not served in the central office for about 20 years since their diplomatic training, they may not fully comprehend certain operational procedures.
The ministry described the overhaul as the largest structural reform in a long time. Its official justification is that “changes in Europe and in the world require a changed way of working for the diplomatic service.”
