Statement by Foreign Minister Wadephul prior to his departure for Southeast Asia and the Pacific region

We are living in times when old certainties that our prosperity and security rested on for decades are crumbling. In times when the law of the strong threatens to supplant the strength of the law. Now in particular, we must expand our global network of robust partnerships in line with our core interests. We want to consolidate existing partnerships and forge new ones.

This is why I am travelling once again to the Indo-Pacific region. It holds crucial strategic importance for Germany and Europe in many respects. Even in Berlin or Brussels, we feel the economic dynamism and innovative power of this forward-looking region - as well as the geo-economic and security challenges that many countries there have to deal with. All of that has an impact on us, too.

The five countries that I am visiting share our interest in a stable international order and our commitment to multilateralism. Together, we advocate for clear rules to govern international relations when these come under pressure - in Europe as in the Indo-Pacific. Because what happens in the Taiwan Strait or the South China Sea, for example, has global repercussions.

The Indo-Pacific is also a region with important partners if we want to increase our options for procuring strategically important raw materials, reduce dependencies in other critical areas and overall diversify our supply chains. Expanding economic relations based on free trade, competition and fairness is in our mutual interest. For a major exporting economy like Germany, this is of outstanding importance - as it is for our emerging partners in the ASEAN region. What happens in the Indo-Pacific will be crucial in determining how secure the freedom of shipping routes, global supply chains and thus worldwide economic development will remain.

As an important hub of global infrastructure, Singapore is a gateway to the world. The pulse of technological innovation and international trade can be measured there. By expanding our partnership with ASEAN, we want to further strengthen our cooperation with the region. Brunei, which is currently serving as the EU's country coordinator, has an important role to play in this.

In Australia and New Zealand, Germany and Europe have good friends and important partners in values on the other side of the world. We are closely bound by our shared commitment to freedom and democracy. We are also cooperating ever more closely on security, and want to do more to harness economic potential as well, for example in the field of raw materials. New Zealand and the EU have had a free trade agreement since 2024. The country is also an important partner for research cooperation with Germany, with regard to the Antarctic - and a gateway to the Pacific islands, with whom we want to work more closely.

We are celebrating 50 years of diplomatic relations and 150 years of our friendship treaty with the Kingdom of Tonga; we are establishing diplomatic relations with Niue; and we are aiming to become a strategic partner of the Pacific Islands Forum, a regional organisation to whose climate fund Germany contributes. For the Pacific Island States, climate change is an existential threat and thus ultimately a question of security.

In uncertain times, it is incumbent upon us to continue building a reliable network of global partnerships and ensuring it is fit for the future. Because our freedom, prosperity and security will not be decided in Europe alone - but in worldwide cooperation.