Former chief adviser for European affairs to German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Berlin’s current ambassador to France and Monaco, Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut[1], has been appointed head of the EU delegation to Turkey, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell announced Tuesday.
Meyer-Landrut will replace current EU delegation head Christian Berger, who will continue his EU representation in Egypt.
Meyer-Landrut, 59, has been Berlin’s ambassador to Paris since 2015. Previously, from February 2011 until mid-2015, Mayer-Landrut, who is known as one of Germany’s leading diplomats, served as chief adviser to Merkel on European affairs.
A high number of issues remain at the top of the agenda of Turkey-EU relations, including cooperation in the fight against COVID-19, the migration crisis, regional developments in Syria and Libya as well as accession talks.
Turkey has a long history with the bloc and a long process of negotiations. The country signed an association agreement with the EU in 1964, which is usually regarded as a first step to eventually become a candidate. Applying for official candidacy in 1987, Turkey had to wait until 1999 to be granted the status of a candidate country. For the start of the negotiations, however, the country had to wait for another six years, until 2005, having a uniquely long process compared with other applicants.
[1] Nikolaus Meyer-Landrut (born 1960) is a German diplomat, currently serving as German Ambassador to France. He was previously chief adviser for European affairs to the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel.
Meyer-Landrut was born in 1960 and was awarded his PhD in history, examining the role of France in German reunification, at the University of Cologne in 1988.
In 1987, Meyer-Landrut joined the German foreign office under the third cabinet of the conservative chancellor Helmut Kohl. Between 1990 and 1993, the diplomat served in Vienna, leading the German negotiations of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, and advised on German foreign affairs in Brussels thereafter (until 1995). From 1995 to 1999 Meyer-Landrut was deputy chief of the central ministerial office in Bonn, responsible for the Amsterdam Treaty and the Common Foreign and Security Policy of the European Union among other things attached to that portfolio.
Between 1999 and summer 2002, Meyer-Landrut served as press spokesperson of the Permanent Representation of the Federal Republic of Germany to the European Union under the social democratic–green Schröder administration and was appointed spokesperson of the president of the Convention on the Future of Europe by Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, the convention's president and former president of France (1974–81). Between September 2003 and April 2006, he advised as leading official on European affairs in the Federal Foreign Office and joined the German Chancellery, advising on the same topic, in May of the same year.[1]
From February 2011 until mid-2015, Mayer-Landrut served as chief adviser to Merkel on European affairs,[2] thereby succeeding Uwe Corsepius.
In July 2015, Meyer-Landrut succeeded Susanne Wasum-Rainer as German Ambassador to France. In 2018, Foreign Minister Heiko Maas vetoed Merkel's plan to appoint Meyer-Landrut as Germany's Permanent Representative to the European Union in Brussels.
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