Germany is sending Ottawa a diplomatic double-act — two ambassadors for the price of one

Germany soon will be represented in Ottawa by two ambassadors — a novel arrangement for a G7 bilateral relationship with Canada.

Matthias Lüttenberg and Tjorven Bellmann, a married couple with three children, are the new ambassadors-designate for Germany in Ottawa.

“This is a new model also for us as a family, but we are looking forward to this,” Lüttenberg said in an interview airing Saturday on CBC’s The House.

The couple will share the ambassadorship on a rotating basis when they officially assume the post. Bellmann will serve in the post first, while Lüttenberg cares for their kids.

“Every eight months, we will rotate,” Lüttenberg said. “So one of us will be the ambassador of Germany to Canada and the other one will take care of our children.”

Both ambassadors-delegate are experienced diplomats. Bellmann was G7 political director for Germany, and Lüttenberg was a director in the German foreign ministry dealing with eastern Europe.

The two said that after more than a decade of intense work in Berlin, this is their last chance to take a posting together and spend more time with their children before they are grown.

It’s the first time such an arrangement has come to Ottawa, and while Germany has experience with similar co-ambassadorships in other countries, this will be the first such tandem ambassadorship in a G7 capital. The two countries have a deep bilateral relationship that, in recent years, has included efforts to support Ukraine’s defence and a recent deal to export Canadian hydrogen.

The couple told host Catherine Cullen that the Canadians they’ve spoken with have a lot of questions about the dual ambassadorship — many of them about money.

“Yes, we’re sharing one salary, and I think we’ll survive,” Lüttenberg said.

Bellmann said Berlin has embraced this new model of diplomacy — similar co-ambassador models have been used in Sweden, Slovenia and Germany’s Montreal consulate — because of the changing job market and the needs of younger Germans in the foreign service.

“In order to stay an attractive employer for young people … we want the best and the brightest, and they have demands. We felt that we needed to make the service more flexible,” she said.

The couple said they felt they had a responsibility to make the arrangement work. They said they’ll be challenged to maintain a clear line between work and family life as their roles shift.

“I think in the end it’s all about communication. You really have to communicate to each other,” Bellmann said. “The advice we got was to really keep the roles separate and not mix them and be very clear of who’s in charge of what at what time, so that it’s clear for staff, but it’s also clear for the host country and the kids.

“It’s a new experiment for us as well. And I think we will just grow with it and live through it and try to make it work. We will certainly do our best.”