Germany’s “green” foreign minister has been reportedly handed a significant sporting loss by a bunch of 15-year-olds.
During her visit to Fiji on May 5, Annalena Baerbock of The Greens party captained a coalition of German Government politicians in a penalty shoot-out against Fijian schoolchildren from the under-15s national team.
Things did not go well for the traffic-light coalition’s football squad, with Baerbock’s forces trailing 5-1 by the time the final whistle was blown.
Jürgen Coße, a Bundestag MP with the Social Democratic Party (SPD), was the only German to end up on the scoresheet. Baerbock had her own chance denied by the Fijian keeper.
Despite the loss, the game represented a relative political high for the green minister amid a trip plagued by controversy and bad PR.
With the visit partly aimed at highlighting the problems caused by climate change, opposition representatives grilled Baerbock for using the German Government’s private Airbus A340 for the official tour of the South Pacific.
Having already been put under pressure for her controversial private jet usage in the past, things had got worse after she was forced to cancel the original tour last year after the jet malfunctioned.
The aircraft apparently suffered a technical fault with its flaps shortly after refuelling in Abu Dhabi, with the pilot reportedly being forced to stay airborne for two hours dumping around 80 tons of kerosene in the desert and at sea before being able to safely land the plane.
The fiasco prompted uproar among Germany’s more environmentally conscious politicians, many of whom argued Baerbock should have just taken a standard commercial flight for the trip.
Officials working for Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s progressive foreign minister, reportedly told Twitter in July to censor an account mocking her. https://t.co/1QLbdPt6MH
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) August 9, 2023
