From 1988 Schmid worked in various positions within the
German Federal Foreign Office and was assistant private secretary to the minister for European Affairs between 1990 and 1991. From 1991 to 1994 she was the press and public affairs officer for the
German embassy in
Washington, D.C., under successive ambassadors
Jürgen Ruhfus and
Immo Stabreit. From 1994 to 1998, Schmid worked as a political adviser to
Foreign Minister Klaus Kinkel. She held the same position from 1998 to 2000 with Foreign Minister
Joschka Fischer. Between 2000 and 2005, she followed various executive positions at the headquarters of the
Foreign Office in
Berlin. Among them, she was Head of the Political Staff and Head of the Ministerial Office from 2003 to 2005. In 2006, Schmid became Director of the Policy Planning and Early Warning Unit of the High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy,
Javier Solana, in the
General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union in Brussels. Following the founding of the
European External Action Service, Schmid became deputy secretary-general for political affairs in 2010, serving under the secretary general
Pierre Vimont. In this capacity, she was involved in negotiations for the
Nuclear program of Iran. The task was to negotiate with
Abbas Araghchi and continue the high level discussions, while the technical level was ongoing. In the negotiations for the
EU-3 nuclear agreement with
Iran, Schmid was the lead author of the 100-page treaty which was successfully concluded in 2015, while holding the consent of current president
Rouhani, who at the time was the Iranian
Chief Negotiator in the Nuclear Dispute. In September 2020, on the recommendation of
Heiko Maas, Schmid was nominated by the German government of Chancellor
Angela Merkel as a candidate to become secretary-general of the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). On 4 December 2020, she was formally appointed to the position. In 2024 Schmid was the leading candidate to run for president of the
United Nations General Assembly in 2025. On 18 March 2025, after the
2025 German federal election,
Annalena Baerbock was surprisingly announced to run for the position. Despite this, Schmid received seven votes in the UNGA as a write-in candidate. == Other activities ==