The situation is rare enough to raise questions. The German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, who has been in power in Berlin since May 6, will not be attending the United Nations General Assembly during the week of September 22. The reason: His presence is required at the Bundestag for the review of the 2026 budget. He is scheduled to deliver a speech in Berlin at the very moment he would have been expected to speak in New York.

As a result, his foreign affairs minister, Johann Wadephul, will represent Germany, who is nonetheless a candidate for a non-permanent seat on the Security Council. Wadephul will travel to New York on Monday and Tuesday, return to Berlin on Wednesday to defend his ministry's budget before the Bundestag, before crossing the Atlantic again that same evening.

"For Friedrich Merz, the Bundestag always comes first," a government spokesperson said, emphasizing that his absence from Berlin would have triggered indignant reactions. The chancellor's flurry of trips since taking office has even earned him the nickname "foreign affairs chancellor" in Germany, where the ambitious reform agenda promised during the campaign has yet to materialize. But this schedule also had an advantage: It spared the chancellor from having to address the thorny question of Israel.

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