Overview
- Baerbock used her roughly ten-minute farewell speech in the Bundestag on June 27 to denounce an AfD-proposed law aiming to halt state funding for NGOs.
- She cautioned that the measure would intimidate civil society and could even affect sports organizations, joking that it risked Germany’s chances of another football world title.
- Her remarks prompted standing ovations from Green deputies and applause from CDU and SPD figures such as Roderich Kiesewetter and Ralf Stegner, highlighting her broad parliamentary respect.
- The 44-year-old Green veteran is leaving the Bundestag quietly on June 30 without a formal farewell event after twelve years in parliament.
- Baerbock will begin her one-year term as president of the UN General Assembly in New York this September, a largely ceremonial but high-profile diplomatic post.