Solid, Reliable, Good

"Perceptional spectrum" is one of Steinmeier's favorite phrases and it says a lot about him. The foreign minister has used his first year in office, first and foremost, to expand his own perceptional spectrum. While the 50-year-old lawyer previously spent years sitting inside Germany's chancellery as former Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's chief-of-staff, he took off on a world trip in stages immediately after switching jobs.

He visited South America, the Arabian peninsula, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and North Africa -- and realized that a purely euro-Atlantic approach to foreign policy is no longer sufficient in the 21st century. The attention Steinmeier pays to emerging regions on all five continents expands Germany's world -- even if it's not always clear right away where a common path may lead. For now, Steinmeier is making connections that might come in handy later.

His impartiality and his interest in people and topics that he's unfamiliar with are characteristics that help him in this regard. His friendly, relaxed way has made him friends abroad and quickly turned him into the most popular politician of the grand coalition at home. This happened despite his dry and often awkward way of expressing himself. Take "perceptional spectrum" as an example.

His first year in office was also an educational year for Steinmeier. Three kidnappings -- two in Iraq and one in Yemen -- put the top diplomat and his colleagues to the test. All three had happy endings, largely due to his level-headed crisis management.

The troubled German-American relationship was another construction site for the new government of Social and Christian Democrats. The chancellor took on this issue herself and Steinmeier flanked her. In general, Merkel, a Christian Democrat, and Steinmeier, a Social Democrat, work surprisingly well together.

Steinmeier heads to the Middle East or holds talks about the Iranian nuclear program, providing for continuity in German foreign policy by doing so. Merkel on the other hand deals with her mighty counterparts in Washington and Moscow and makes adjustments to the foreign policy standpoints of her predecessor. Schröder's confidante Steinmeier no longer has to bear responsibility for this.

But he will not be able to evade testimony in front of the parliamentary inquiry in the el Masri case in which a Lebanese-born German claims to have been kidnapped by CIA agents and tortured, as he played a crucial role in his capacity as head of the German chancellery.

But what's Steinmeier's strategy? He's more concerned about energy policy than his predecessor as he thinks that long-term security of energy supplies is a central foreign policy issue. Foreign trade policy is naturally also part of his job and he wants to expand contacts with "key regions of the future" that he's already visited.

Beyond that, however, it's hard to see a holistic strategic concept. Questions of the day dominate Steinmeier's agenda too often and he remains vague and lacks differentiation with his politeness. Still, his foreign policy is solid, reliable and good overall.

Nina Werkhäuser is DW-RADIO's foreign affairs correspondent in Berlin (win)