Amy Gutmann, political scientist and president of the University of Pennsylvania, will be the new US ambassador to Berlin
(Photo: dpa)
Berlin Amy Gutmann becomes the new US ambassador to Germany. The path to Berlin is clear for the 72-year-old political scientist after the US Senate confirmed the election of President Joe Biden. There were 54 yes and 42 no votes. Four senators did not vote.
Gutmann was previously President of the University of Pennsylvania and will succeed Richard Grenell, who caused a lot of unrest in Berlin as a “speaker” for former US President Donald Trump and left the ambassador’s post last year. Biden had already nominated Gutmann at the end of last year.
Gutmann is the first woman to hold the post of American ambassador to Germany. The new ambassador has a German family history. Her Jewish father fled Germany in 1934 to escape Nazi persecution.
Gutmann was born in Brooklyn, New York, and studied political science and philosophy at the London School of Economics and Harvard University. She later taught at Princeton University and advised former US President Barack Obama on bioethics issues.
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Some delicate tasks await Gutmann in Berlin. The Ukraine crisis has caused massive upsets between Germany and the USA. In Congress, but also in the American public, there was plenty of criticism for the hesitant behavior of the federal government.
There were differences of opinion above all about the future of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline after a possible invasion of Russian troops in Ukraine. Chancellor Olaf Scholz has just returned from a visit to Washington where Biden announced the end of the Baltic Sea pipeline in the event of a Russian attack.
Contaminated sites in Berlin
In addition, there are legacy issues in the transatlantic relationship, such as Berlin’s unfulfilled promise to increase defense spending to two percent of gross domestic product. Gutmann will also have to dampen the hopes of many politicians and business representatives in Berlin that there will be a new free trade agreement between the USA and Europe in the foreseeable future.
More: “Nord Stream 2 is not in the European interest,” says EU Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager