In Berlin and Aachen, it was hard to miss the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy yesterday. In the morning, Zelenskiy thanked Chancellor Scholz and President Steinmeier for their support and at the same time asked for further funds, including the delivery of modern fighter jets – in the afternoon, he accepted the International Charlemagne prize in Aachen for services to European unity.
A Dutch journalist has become the target of a massive intimidation campaign, behind which China is suspected. Marije Vlaskamp reported as a correspondent from Beijing for 25 years – and now reports in her newspaper “de Volkskrant” about staged bomb threats in The Hague. Stephan Israel has written an analysis worth reading.
Have a good start to the new week
arije Vlaskamp knows how the Chinese authorities operate when they want to silence someone. After all, the Dutch journalist reported from Beijing as a correspondent for almost 25 years before returning to The Hague. And still, she is shocked. In April, the 54-year-old described in detail in the newspaper “de Volkskrant” how she had become the target of a massive intimidation campaign. Including a staged bomb threat in her name and the name of Wang Jingyu, one of her interlocutors from the Chinese dissident scene.
This prompted Marije Vlaskamp and her editorial team to tell the story to the public. The journalist had accompanied Wang since he fled China and reached the Netherlands and used his story as an example to describe how China terrorizes dissidents and critics even in exile.
Then, in the fall, the situation escalated: Wang received new threats over the messaging service Telegram, in which he was called a “traitor” and told to keep his mouth shut. He was told to stop giving interviews, delete his Twitter account and make sure that articles about him were taken off the Internet. “One tip from me and the police will arrest you and your journalist friend,” was the last message.
Almost simultaneously, Vlaskamp and Wang received booking confirmations for the same hotel in The Hague’s government quarter near the Chinese embassy, which they had never made. The journalist was ultimately alarmed when she learned of a bomb threat on the news and that the police had cordoned off the government quarter. A short time later, another bomb threat followed in her name against China’s embassy in Oslo.
The Chinese regime usually uses this psychological warfare tactic against former Chinese citizens, dissidents, Uyghurs or Tibetans, says Vlaskamp. She wrote that it was probably the first time unknown individuals threatened a Dutch journalist outside of China in the name of the Chinese state.
The assailants do not even try to cover up their background. The embassy itself alerted the police to the alleged bomb threat and reportedly also mentioned the names of Vlaskamp and Wang. The bomb threats and hotel reservations could be traced back to IP addresses in China and Hong Kong, the Dutch judicial authorities also reported.
The NGO Reporters Without Borders has called on the authorities to identify the culprits behind the hoax bomb threats in the name of two journalists in the Netherlands and Germany. The Chinese journalist Su Yutong, who lives in Germany and reports for the Free Asia channel, was similarly subjected to massive pressure. Hotels in Berlin, New York, Houston, Los Angeles and Istanbul were booked in her name. Hoax bomb threats followed them. “These particularly vicious methods, although anonymous, bear all the characteristics of the Chinese regime’s intimidation tactics,” the NGO said.
Dutch MEP Bart Groothuis, an expert in the fight against disinformation and foreign influence, shares a similar view. He speaks of the handwriting of the United Front Work Department, an instrument of the Chinese Communist Party to silence critics, including abroad. “The attack on Marije Vlaskamp is a new signal of what China is willing to do to silence people in the West as well,” says the politician from Premier Mark Rutte’s right-wing liberal ruling party.
By now, there are hardly any female scientists or universities in the West investigating the fate of the Uyghurs, the end of freedom in Hong Kong or the United Front network, for example. They say they have to fear that contacts will be harassed or that they will be arrested when traveling abroad, for instance, because of the extradition agreements between China and many countries around the world.
Groothuis believes that intelligence services and security authorities have an obligation. For a long time, he says, the focus has been on Russia while the danger posed by China has been neglected. Moreover, it is no use summoning Chinese ambassadors and protesting. “We must clearly tell China that hostile influence and intimidation campaigns have an economic price.”
Groothuis is not calling for decoupling from China. Instead, the EU should take a closer look at investments from China, Russia and Iran, always with a focus on possible security risks for Western democracies. The MEP sees this as a central task for the next EU Commission
Alerk Ablikim also has clear words. The Dutch-born Uyghur is co-founder of a platform of various immigrant groups, including those from Turkey, Morocco, Eritrea and Belarus, who are mobilizing against foreign influence. He says the case of Marije Vlaskamp shows how big the problem of intimidation by foreign regimes in Europe has become. Immigrants from China, Turkey, Morocco or Eritrea would suffer daily from the long arm of their home countries. It is not enough to set up a hotline and make espionage more punishable, as the Dutch government is planning to do, says Ablikim.
In an open letter, the platform urges the government in The Hague to appoint a national coordinator: “Foreign interference – including intimidation – is a growing social problem that threatens Dutch democracy.” Politicians in general need to react more decisively, says co-initiator Ablikim.
The activist cites the case of illegal police stations used by China to harass opposition activists. China also operated two stations in the Netherlands. The stations in Rotterdam and Amsterdam were closed after protests. Unlike in the USA, however, there have been no arrests or other consequences. This is like an invitation to China, Ablikim says. The activist demands that Europe draw red lines against hostile interference more clearly in the future and that Western democracies oppose transnational repression more decisively. Stephan Israel
Exactly eight weeks ago, the EU Commission presented its legislative proposal for Critical Raw Materials. Rapporteur Nicola Beer (FDP) has now completed her draft report at a rapid pace. It is to be discussed next Monday, in the Industry Committee of the European Parliament, Table.Media already has the draft.
The Commission’s proposal goes overall in the right direction, Beer writes in her statement. She particularly welcomes aspects such as the identification of strategic raw materials, the acceleration of approval procedures and the one-stop-shop for project promoters, as well as the framework for strategic projects and strategic partnerships. Beer also calls on all stakeholders to heed the urgency of the legislative package.
The total of 107 amendments in their draft report pursues five central objectives:
Beer adheres to the Commission’s benchmarks for strengthening domestic mining, local processing and recycling capacity. However, she wants to add to the recycling target: Recycling capacity for each strategic raw material should increase by 7.5 percent by 2030.
According to the draft report, the definition of “extraction” of raw materials should also include secondary extraction of raw materials and byproducts. It is necessary to ensure that strategic raw materials only extracted as a byproduct of other products can also be granted strategic project status, it said. In addition, the report strengthens the role of substituting strategically with alternative raw materials.
The list of strategic raw materials is to be updated every two years instead of every four years as envisaged by the Commission. According to the draft, any raw material removed from the list after an update will still be considered a strategic raw material for two more years.
Unsurprisingly, the target of greater consideration for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) runs through the draft. Beer wants to change the definition of large companies: According to the draft, these should have an average of more than 1,500 employees (instead of 500, as the Commission envisages) and achieve a global net turnover of more than €2,000 million (instead of €150 million), so that medium-sized companies are exempt from certain regulations such as risk management. In addition, a subgroup with SME representatives is to be created on the European Raw Materials Board.
Provisions such as binding schedules for the Commission and Board in the application process for strategic projects or the strengthening of value chains beyond 2030 are intended to provide companies with greater planning security.
Other changes made by the rapporteur are aimed at reducing the administrative burden. For example, she deletes the criterion of cross-border benefits for strategic projects and strengthens the role of the Commission as the main point of contact for project promoters. The Commission is also to provide greater support to project promoters and member states, for example, in the implementation of national exploration programs.
Beer also wants to strengthen the role of Parliament: Instead of an observer role, an EP representative is to be a full member of the Board alongside the Council and the Commission. In addition, the Board should report regularly to Parliament on the development of partnerships with third countries and their mutual benefits.
Beer wants to delete an obligation for member states to hold strategic stocks and the benchmark for a safe stock level at EU level; the decision should be left to the member states. She wants to limit the requirements to voluntary monitoring.
Mr. Wiewiórowski, what has the General Data Protection Regulation achieved for the average European?
We have succeeded in creating an overarching legal system for the whole of Europe. Meaning we have the same level of protection for personal data, regardless of the provider’s location in Europe. For average Europeans, that means they can always take their complaints to their own data protection authority and do not have to deal with a different legal system. That is the difference for those who want to file complaints.
For all citizens, it means first of all that there is much more attention to privacy and data protection issues than in the past. The whole discussion around the GDPR and its entry into force and the most important cases keep making it to the top of the media agenda.
Critics say that little has been achieved apart from some very complicated court cases. How do you counter them?
I would say that 99 percent of data protection-related cases are not big, international cases but national and local ones. And this is where the uniform level of protection helps. We don’t see any severe problems there.
But it is the international cases that get the most attention…
Looking at the big, cross-border cases, the first years of this new data protection order were when we had to try out new procedures. We are still in the middle of the process of having the first decisions made by data protection supervisors reviewed by courts. But overall, hundreds of these cross-border cases have already been concluded.
Additionally, the cases of the big tech companies are now decided by the regulators and then reviewed by the courts. If you look at competition law: It took seven years for the first notices to be issued; for the GDPR, it’s five. And there is already a large collection of case law.
But five years are like centuries in the digital age – five years ago, we weren’t really talking about TikTok, for example. Doesn’t GDPR enforcement need to become faster?
We should become faster on legal issues. But we shouldn’t be too fast either, because it’s not our role as data protection experts to predict the future. It will surprise us anyway.
Some say there was no discussion on AI when the GDPR was discussed. Yes, back then was the “AI winter.” And social media looked different, too. But the basic principles of data protection and privacy remain the same. We should be well prepared for what happens in the future, but we should not try to chase the rabbit. It will always be faster than the legislature and the courts.
The most famous GDPR case is probably that of Facebook. It has been with the Irish data protection regulator since 2018 and there was a lot of criticism of the regulators in the case. As a representative of the data protection supervisory authorities, don’t you have to agree that data protection proceedings sometimes take forever?
I’m not surprised that data protection regulators approach procedural issues very cautiously. One of the worst things that could happen when trying to enforce the new regulation would be to lose the first three cases due to minor procedural errors. I have my own opinion on the length of the process, of course, but I also have to say that the number of decisions on major players has increased significantly over the last twelve months. Now, it is the time when the most complicated cases are concluded at the level of the supervisory authorities.
An e-privacy regulation was also supposed to come in parallel with the DGSVO. However, the regulation is still stuck in the trilogue to this day. Do you see any possibility that the regulation will be adopted soon and that something will change for users?
A difficult question. On the one hand, I regret that the e-privacy regulation is not here yet. For me, it would be the natural next step. For another, looking at the Council’s latest proposals, I’m not very confident that it would create a unified system. That we don’t have an e-privacy regulation is difficult for users and regulators. But it is more important to have a good e-privacy regulation than any e-privacy regulation.
After five years with the GDPR, there is certainly room for improvement, from your point of view. What should be changed if the regulation is ever touched?
We think that enforcement, in particular, can be improved, for which we have made proposals that have now been taken up by the Commission. But there will not be significant changes before the next European Parliament legislature and the term of the next Commission. Now is not the right time to debate significant changes. Because so far, the possibilities of the GDPR have not been exhausted.
More than six years ago, in March 2017, Géza von Geyr traveled to Moscow. The then-head of the policy department at the Berlin Defense Ministry met with his Russian counterpart. On the agenda, the Moscow ministry reported were Russian concerns in light of NATO’s activities “near the Russian borders” and of Western missile defense sites in Poland and Romania.
The visit, which was repeated a year later by von Geyr, a diplomat on loan to Germany’s defense ministry, was notable mainly because conversational contacts – military ones – between NATO and Russia had been virtually nonexistent since Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014. The political director from Berlin’s Bendlerblock tried not to let the wire to Moscow break off, at least on the political level. That von Geyr then left the Ministry of Defense in 2019 and moved to the Russian capital as German ambassador seemed only logical.
When the diplomat, born in 1962, soon moves as ambassador from Moscow to the German mission to NATO after almost four years, however, he will be leaving a completely changed political situation in Russia – and meeting an alliance that has also changed. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, relations between Russia and NATO have changed from frosty coexistence to open hostility. He is seen as an enemy in Moscow, von Geyr acknowledged during talks on the sidelines of his visits to Germany. There are practically no more contacts with the Russian government.
NATO is also adjusting to this. Defense plans for its eastern member states are revised, and, in some cases, even drawn up. Germany, as the largest and most populous member state in Europe, has an essential role to play here, and in the future, with its new representative in Brussels, will bring additional expertise and, above all, contacts to the table.
A historian and political scientist by training, von Geyr, who began the classic diplomatic career at the Foreign Office a good thirty years ago, had already made security policy his focus before taking up his post as Political Director at the Ministry of Defense under the then head of department Ursula von der Leyen. After his first position as attaché at the German Embassy in Morocco, his work was practically dominated by foreign and security policy tasks. These included, above all, his work as Head of Division in the Foreign and Security Policy Department of the Federal Chancellery and his position as Vice President of the Federal Intelligence Service.
Von Geyr, who is considered one of the brightest strategic thinkers in German diplomacy, will play a decisive role in shaping the West’s future relations with Russia in his new position. In July 2018, while still head of the policy department at the Defense Ministry, he had expressed optimism: NATO remains the cornerstone of European security, he said, but he “very much hopes that Moscow’s policy will also allow us to get back to a better coexistence with Russia.” Thomas Wiegold
In Berlin and Aachen, it was hard to miss the visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy yesterday. In the morning, Zelenskiy thanked Chancellor Scholz and President Steinmeier for their support and at the same time asked for further funds, including the delivery of modern fighter jets – in the afternoon, he accepted the International Charlemagne prize in Aachen for services to European unity.
A Dutch journalist has become the target of a massive intimidation campaign, behind which China is suspected. Marije Vlaskamp reported as a correspondent from Beijing for 25 years – and now reports in her newspaper “de Volkskrant” about staged bomb threats in The Hague. Stephan Israel has written an analysis worth reading.
Have a good start to the new week
arije Vlaskamp knows how the Chinese authorities operate when they want to silence someone. After all, the Dutch journalist reported from Beijing as a correspondent for almost 25 years before returning to The Hague. And still, she is shocked. In April, the 54-year-old described in detail in the newspaper “de Volkskrant” how she had become the target of a massive intimidation campaign. Including a staged bomb threat in her name and the name of Wang Jingyu, one of her interlocutors from the Chinese dissident scene.
This prompted Marije Vlaskamp and her editorial team to tell the story to the public. The journalist had accompanied Wang since he fled China and reached the Netherlands and used his story as an example to describe how China terrorizes dissidents and critics even in exile.
Then, in the fall, the situation escalated: Wang received new threats over the messaging service Telegram, in which he was called a “traitor” and told to keep his mouth shut. He was told to stop giving interviews, delete his Twitter account and make sure that articles about him were taken off the Internet. “One tip from me and the police will arrest you and your journalist friend,” was the last message.
Almost simultaneously, Vlaskamp and Wang received booking confirmations for the same hotel in The Hague’s government quarter near the Chinese embassy, which they had never made. The journalist was ultimately alarmed when she learned of a bomb threat on the news and that the police had cordoned off the government quarter. A short time later, another bomb threat followed in her name against China’s embassy in Oslo.
The Chinese regime usually uses this psychological warfare tactic against former Chinese citizens, dissidents, Uyghurs or Tibetans, says Vlaskamp. She wrote that it was probably the first time unknown individuals threatened a Dutch journalist outside of China in the name of the Chinese state.
The assailants do not even try to cover up their background. The embassy itself alerted the police to the alleged bomb threat and reportedly also mentioned the names of Vlaskamp and Wang. The bomb threats and hotel reservations could be traced back to IP addresses in China and Hong Kong, the Dutch judicial authorities also reported.
The NGO Reporters Without Borders has called on the authorities to identify the culprits behind the hoax bomb threats in the name of two journalists in the Netherlands and Germany. The Chinese journalist Su Yutong, who lives in Germany and reports for the Free Asia channel, was similarly subjected to massive pressure. Hotels in Berlin, New York, Houston, Los Angeles and Istanbul were booked in her name. Hoax bomb threats followed them. “These particularly vicious methods, although anonymous, bear all the characteristics of the Chinese regime’s intimidation tactics,” the NGO said.
Dutch MEP Bart Groothuis, an expert in the fight against disinformation and foreign influence, shares a similar view. He speaks of the handwriting of the United Front Work Department, an instrument of the Chinese Communist Party to silence critics, including abroad. “The attack on Marije Vlaskamp is a new signal of what China is willing to do to silence people in the West as well,” says the politician from Premier Mark Rutte’s right-wing liberal ruling party.
By now, there are hardly any female scientists or universities in the West investigating the fate of the Uyghurs, the end of freedom in Hong Kong or the United Front network, for example. They say they have to fear that contacts will be harassed or that they will be arrested when traveling abroad, for instance, because of the extradition agreements between China and many countries around the world.
Groothuis believes that intelligence services and security authorities have an obligation. For a long time, he says, the focus has been on Russia while the danger posed by China has been neglected. Moreover, it is no use summoning Chinese ambassadors and protesting. “We must clearly tell China that hostile influence and intimidation campaigns have an economic price.”
Groothuis is not calling for decoupling from China. Instead, the EU should take a closer look at investments from China, Russia and Iran, always with a focus on possible security risks for Western democracies. The MEP sees this as a central task for the next EU Commission
Alerk Ablikim also has clear words. The Dutch-born Uyghur is co-founder of a platform of various immigrant groups, including those from Turkey, Morocco, Eritrea and Belarus, who are mobilizing against foreign influence. He says the case of Marije Vlaskamp shows how big the problem of intimidation by foreign regimes in Europe has become. Immigrants from China, Turkey, Morocco or Eritrea would suffer daily from the long arm of their home countries. It is not enough to set up a hotline and make espionage more punishable, as the Dutch government is planning to do, says Ablikim.
In an open letter, the platform urges the government in The Hague to appoint a national coordinator: “Foreign interference – including intimidation – is a growing social problem that threatens Dutch democracy.” Politicians in general need to react more decisively, says co-initiator Ablikim.
The activist cites the case of illegal police stations used by China to harass opposition activists. China also operated two stations in the Netherlands. The stations in Rotterdam and Amsterdam were closed after protests. Unlike in the USA, however, there have been no arrests or other consequences. This is like an invitation to China, Ablikim says. The activist demands that Europe draw red lines against hostile interference more clearly in the future and that Western democracies oppose transnational repression more decisively. Stephan Israel
Exactly eight weeks ago, the EU Commission presented its legislative proposal for Critical Raw Materials. Rapporteur Nicola Beer (FDP) has now completed her draft report at a rapid pace. It is to be discussed next Monday, in the Industry Committee of the European Parliament, Table.Media already has the draft.
The Commission’s proposal goes overall in the right direction, Beer writes in her statement. She particularly welcomes aspects such as the identification of strategic raw materials, the acceleration of approval procedures and the one-stop-shop for project promoters, as well as the framework for strategic projects and strategic partnerships. Beer also calls on all stakeholders to heed the urgency of the legislative package.
The total of 107 amendments in their draft report pursues five central objectives:
Beer adheres to the Commission’s benchmarks for strengthening domestic mining, local processing and recycling capacity. However, she wants to add to the recycling target: Recycling capacity for each strategic raw material should increase by 7.5 percent by 2030.
According to the draft report, the definition of “extraction” of raw materials should also include secondary extraction of raw materials and byproducts. It is necessary to ensure that strategic raw materials only extracted as a byproduct of other products can also be granted strategic project status, it said. In addition, the report strengthens the role of substituting strategically with alternative raw materials.
The list of strategic raw materials is to be updated every two years instead of every four years as envisaged by the Commission. According to the draft, any raw material removed from the list after an update will still be considered a strategic raw material for two more years.
Unsurprisingly, the target of greater consideration for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) runs through the draft. Beer wants to change the definition of large companies: According to the draft, these should have an average of more than 1,500 employees (instead of 500, as the Commission envisages) and achieve a global net turnover of more than €2,000 million (instead of €150 million), so that medium-sized companies are exempt from certain regulations such as risk management. In addition, a subgroup with SME representatives is to be created on the European Raw Materials Board.
Provisions such as binding schedules for the Commission and Board in the application process for strategic projects or the strengthening of value chains beyond 2030 are intended to provide companies with greater planning security.
Other changes made by the rapporteur are aimed at reducing the administrative burden. For example, she deletes the criterion of cross-border benefits for strategic projects and strengthens the role of the Commission as the main point of contact for project promoters. The Commission is also to provide greater support to project promoters and member states, for example, in the implementation of national exploration programs.
Beer also wants to strengthen the role of Parliament: Instead of an observer role, an EP representative is to be a full member of the Board alongside the Council and the Commission. In addition, the Board should report regularly to Parliament on the development of partnerships with third countries and their mutual benefits.
Beer wants to delete an obligation for member states to hold strategic stocks and the benchmark for a safe stock level at EU level; the decision should be left to the member states. She wants to limit the requirements to voluntary monitoring.
Mr. Wiewiórowski, what has the General Data Protection Regulation achieved for the average European?
We have succeeded in creating an overarching legal system for the whole of Europe. Meaning we have the same level of protection for personal data, regardless of the provider’s location in Europe. For average Europeans, that means they can always take their complaints to their own data protection authority and do not have to deal with a different legal system. That is the difference for those who want to file complaints.
For all citizens, it means first of all that there is much more attention to privacy and data protection issues than in the past. The whole discussion around the GDPR and its entry into force and the most important cases keep making it to the top of the media agenda.
Critics say that little has been achieved apart from some very complicated court cases. How do you counter them?
I would say that 99 percent of data protection-related cases are not big, international cases but national and local ones. And this is where the uniform level of protection helps. We don’t see any severe problems there.
But it is the international cases that get the most attention…
Looking at the big, cross-border cases, the first years of this new data protection order were when we had to try out new procedures. We are still in the middle of the process of having the first decisions made by data protection supervisors reviewed by courts. But overall, hundreds of these cross-border cases have already been concluded.
Additionally, the cases of the big tech companies are now decided by the regulators and then reviewed by the courts. If you look at competition law: It took seven years for the first notices to be issued; for the GDPR, it’s five. And there is already a large collection of case law.
But five years are like centuries in the digital age – five years ago, we weren’t really talking about TikTok, for example. Doesn’t GDPR enforcement need to become faster?
We should become faster on legal issues. But we shouldn’t be too fast either, because it’s not our role as data protection experts to predict the future. It will surprise us anyway.
Some say there was no discussion on AI when the GDPR was discussed. Yes, back then was the “AI winter.” And social media looked different, too. But the basic principles of data protection and privacy remain the same. We should be well prepared for what happens in the future, but we should not try to chase the rabbit. It will always be faster than the legislature and the courts.
The most famous GDPR case is probably that of Facebook. It has been with the Irish data protection regulator since 2018 and there was a lot of criticism of the regulators in the case. As a representative of the data protection supervisory authorities, don’t you have to agree that data protection proceedings sometimes take forever?
I’m not surprised that data protection regulators approach procedural issues very cautiously. One of the worst things that could happen when trying to enforce the new regulation would be to lose the first three cases due to minor procedural errors. I have my own opinion on the length of the process, of course, but I also have to say that the number of decisions on major players has increased significantly over the last twelve months. Now, it is the time when the most complicated cases are concluded at the level of the supervisory authorities.
An e-privacy regulation was also supposed to come in parallel with the DGSVO. However, the regulation is still stuck in the trilogue to this day. Do you see any possibility that the regulation will be adopted soon and that something will change for users?
A difficult question. On the one hand, I regret that the e-privacy regulation is not here yet. For me, it would be the natural next step. For another, looking at the Council’s latest proposals, I’m not very confident that it would create a unified system. That we don’t have an e-privacy regulation is difficult for users and regulators. But it is more important to have a good e-privacy regulation than any e-privacy regulation.
After five years with the GDPR, there is certainly room for improvement, from your point of view. What should be changed if the regulation is ever touched?
We think that enforcement, in particular, can be improved, for which we have made proposals that have now been taken up by the Commission. But there will not be significant changes before the next European Parliament legislature and the term of the next Commission. Now is not the right time to debate significant changes. Because so far, the possibilities of the GDPR have not been exhausted.
More than six years ago, in March 2017, Géza von Geyr traveled to Moscow. The then-head of the policy department at the Berlin Defense Ministry met with his Russian counterpart. On the agenda, the Moscow ministry reported were Russian concerns in light of NATO’s activities “near the Russian borders” and of Western missile defense sites in Poland and Romania.
The visit, which was repeated a year later by von Geyr, a diplomat on loan to Germany’s defense ministry, was notable mainly because conversational contacts – military ones – between NATO and Russia had been virtually nonexistent since Russia’s occupation of Crimea in 2014. The political director from Berlin’s Bendlerblock tried not to let the wire to Moscow break off, at least on the political level. That von Geyr then left the Ministry of Defense in 2019 and moved to the Russian capital as German ambassador seemed only logical.
When the diplomat, born in 1962, soon moves as ambassador from Moscow to the German mission to NATO after almost four years, however, he will be leaving a completely changed political situation in Russia – and meeting an alliance that has also changed. Since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, relations between Russia and NATO have changed from frosty coexistence to open hostility. He is seen as an enemy in Moscow, von Geyr acknowledged during talks on the sidelines of his visits to Germany. There are practically no more contacts with the Russian government.
NATO is also adjusting to this. Defense plans for its eastern member states are revised, and, in some cases, even drawn up. Germany, as the largest and most populous member state in Europe, has an essential role to play here, and in the future, with its new representative in Brussels, will bring additional expertise and, above all, contacts to the table.
A historian and political scientist by training, von Geyr, who began the classic diplomatic career at the Foreign Office a good thirty years ago, had already made security policy his focus before taking up his post as Political Director at the Ministry of Defense under the then head of department Ursula von der Leyen. After his first position as attaché at the German Embassy in Morocco, his work was practically dominated by foreign and security policy tasks. These included, above all, his work as Head of Division in the Foreign and Security Policy Department of the Federal Chancellery and his position as Vice President of the Federal Intelligence Service.
Von Geyr, who is considered one of the brightest strategic thinkers in German diplomacy, will play a decisive role in shaping the West’s future relations with Russia in his new position. In July 2018, while still head of the policy department at the Defense Ministry, he had expressed optimism: NATO remains the cornerstone of European security, he said, but he “very much hopes that Moscow’s policy will also allow us to get back to a better coexistence with Russia.” Thomas Wiegold
