At today’s cabinet meeting, the Federal Government learned who was to be on the Supervisory Board of the Berlin Center for International Peace Operations (ZIF).

The Chairmanship will in future be held by Michael Roth, Minister of State for Europe at the Federal Foreign Office. The Board also comprises members of the parliamentary groups which have a presence in the Bundestag as well as representatives of the Federal Ministry of the Interior, the Federal Ministry of Defence and the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.

ZIF has been the Federal Foreign Office’s own implementing agency since 2002. It finds, coordinates, prepares and trains civilian experts for international peace operations and election observation missions run by the EU, OSCE, United Nations and NATO.

ZIF maintains a pool of around 1300 civilian experts whose participation in missions can – as seen recently in Ukraine – be arranged at very short notice. Since 2002, more than 3000 Germans and non-Germans have taken part in ZIF training courses to prepare for operations.

Over and above that, ZIF has recruited, prepared and coordinated around 3700 German election observers for more than 240 different OSCE and EU observation missions over the last 12 years.

Michael Roth, the new Chairman of the Supervisory Board, commented as follows:

The Director of ZIF is Dr Almut Wieland-Karimi, who took office in September 2009.