Baerbock lets Kreuz hang out at foreign ministers' meetings

Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock (Greens) wants to discuss war and peace with her counterparts from the G-7 countries in Münster - but not under the sign of the Christian cross. At the request of the Federal Foreign Office, the 482-year-old council cross was removed from the Peace Hall of the city's historic town hall, as a spokesman for the city administration of Münster confirmed to WELT.

The Hall of Peace in Münster is a place of extraordinary historical importance for Christian Europe and the churches. The Peace of Westphalia, which ended the Thirty Years' War, was negotiated there more than 370 years ago. This devastated large parts of Central Europe and was fought as a religious war.

The foreign ministers of France, Italy, Japan, Canada, the United States and Great Britain met there this Friday and Thursday to discuss the consequences of the Russian attack in Ukraine for Europe, transatlantic cooperation and the international order. Germany holds the presidency until the end of the year, so the host is Baerbock.

Foreign Minister Baerbock wants to prevent the next humanitarian catastrophe in Ukraine. Due to the Russian attacks, there is a lack of electricity and heating there. A joint winter aid program is therefore to be organized at the G-7 summit in Münster.

Source: WELT/ Sebastian Plantholt

Before the meeting of the top diplomats, the venerable cross, in front of which the new council members in Münster are still sworn in, was removed from its position and taken out of the hall after a corresponding request from the Foreign Office. First, the "Westfälische Nachrichten" reported about it.

It is the second time in a very short time that top Green politicians are bothered by Christian symbolism and want to remove it from the public. A few days ago, Minister of State for Culture Claudia Roth (Greens) suggested that the quotations from the Bible on the dome of the rebuilt Berlin City Palace “temporarily be superimposed with alternative, commenting and reflective texts”, as the politician said in response to a request from the Union faction in the Bundestag.

A fierce debate had previously been held in the capital as to whether the city palace should be crowned with a cross as it used to be.

The CDU and CSU are appalled by the Foreign Minister's actions. “This federal government has forgotten tradition and history. Anyone who, like the foreign minister with the centuries-old council cross in Münster's town hall, has symbols of the Christian faith removed from a meeting room is not cosmopolitan, but obstinate," said Thorsten Frei (CDU), first parliamentary director of the Union faction in the Bundestag, WELT.

"Only those who stand by their own tradition and social character can also approach others openly, confidently and with self-confidence," says Frei. "The Christian image of man is the common basis of the liberal and constitutional democracies of the G-7 countries."

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