Annalena Baerbock: President of the United Nations General Assembly
Annalena Baerbock serves as President of the United Nations General Assembly for its 80th session. She was elected on June 2, 2025, and assumed the role on September 9, 2025.
Baerbock, former German Foreign Minister from the Greens party, won with 167 votes in a secret ballot against write-in candidate Helga Schmid. This marks her as the first from re-unified Germany and the Western European group, and only the fifth woman in UNGA history to hold the position.
Her tenure coincides with the UN’s 80th anniversary amid global crises like conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza.
Baerbock’s “Better Together” vision focuses on UN reforms (UN80 initiative), advancing the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda, and promoting inclusivity for civil society, youth, and gender equality. She aims to strengthen multilateralism as an “honest broker” for all 193 member states.
Annalena Baerbock is a German politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens, best known as Germany’s foreign minister from 2021 to 2025 and later as President of the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly. Her early life and formative experiences were shaped in a left‑wing, environmentally conscious family, which later fed into her political career.
Early life and education
Baerbock was born on 15 December 1980 in Hanover, Germany, and grew up partly in Nuremberg before her family moved to Schulenburg (Pattensen), near Hanover. Her mother was a social worker and her father a mechanical engineer, and from an early age she attended anti‑war and anti‑nuclear‑power protests supported by the Greens, which influenced her political outlook.
She attended the Humboldt School in Hanover and spent a year abroad at age 16 as an exchange student at Lake Highland Preparatory School in Orlando, Florida. As a teenager she was also a competitive trampoline gymnast, taking part in German championships and winning bronze medals three times.
Early political career
Baerbock joined Alliance 90/The Greens in 1997 and rose through local and state‑level party structures in Brandenburg. From 2005 to 2008 she worked as an advisor for a Member of the European Parliament, gaining early experience in EU and foreign‑policy affairs.
In 2008 she became chair of the Greens in Brandenburg, a role that honed her leadership skills within the party. From 2010 she moved to the federal level, advising the Greens’ parliamentary group in the Bundestag on foreign and security policy, a position that firmly oriented her towards diplomacy.
Breakthrough roles
Baerbock was first elected to the German Bundestag in 2013 and served as a member continuously until June 2025. In 2018 she was elected co‑chair of the Green Party, becoming one of its two federal leaders and a central figure in the party’s national profile.
She stepped down as co‑chair in 2022 when she entered the federal government as Minister for Foreign Affairs, a post she held until May 2025. After leaving the German government, she became President of the 80th session of the UN General Assembly, reflecting her continued focus on multilateralism and international diplomacy.
