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Manuela Schwesig

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Manuela Schwesig
MdL MdBR
Schwesig in 2024
President of the Bundesrat
Incumbent
Assumed office
1 November 2023
First Vice PresidentPeter Tschentscher
Preceded byPeter Tschentscher
Minister-President of
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Incumbent
Assumed office
4 July 2017
DeputyLorenz Caffier
Harry Glawe
Simone Oldenburg
Preceded byErwin Sellering
Leader of the
Social Democratic Party of
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
Incumbent
Assumed office
2 June 2017
DeputyStefan Sternberg
Nadine Julitz
Christian Pegel
Erik von Malottki
Reem Alabali-Radovan
General SecretaryJulian Barlen
Preceded byErwin Sellering
Leader of the
Social Democratic Party
Acting
In office
3 June 2019 – 10 September 2019
General SecretaryLars Klingbeil
Preceded byAndrea Nahles
Succeeded byNorbert Walter-Borjans
Saskia Esken
Deputy Leader of the
Social Democratic Party
In office
13 November 2009 – 10 September 2019
LeaderSigmar Gabriel
Martin Schulz
Andrea Nahles
Preceded byPeer Steinbrück
Succeeded byKlara Geywitz
Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth
In office
17 December 2013 – 2 June 2017
ChancellorAngela Merkel
Preceded byKristina Schröder
Succeeded byKatarina Barley
Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Cabinet
Minister of Labour, Equality and Social Affairs
In office
25 October 2011 – 16 December 2013
Minister-President
Preceded byherself (Social Affairs)
Jürgen Seidel (Labour)
Succeeded byBirgit Hesse
Minister of Health and Social Affairs
In office
6 October 2008 – 25 October 2011
Minister-President
Preceded byErwin Sellering
Succeeded byherself (Social Affairs)
Landtag constituencies
Member of the
Landtag of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
for Schwerin I
Incumbent
Assumed office
26 October 2021
Preceded byErwin Sellering (2019)
In office
4 October 2011 – 14 January 2014
Preceded byGottfried Timm
Succeeded byDagmar Kaselitz
Personal details
Born
Manuela Frenzel

(1974-05-23) 23 May 1974 (age 50)
Frankfurt (Oder), Bezirk Frankfurt (Oder), East Germany (now Brandenburg, Germany)
Political partySocial Democratic Party (2003–)
Spouse
Stefan Schwesig
​
(m. 2000)​
Children2
ResidenceSchwerin
Alma materFachhochschule für Finanzen Brandenburg
Occupation
  • Politician
  • Tax Investigator
  • Civil Servant
WebsiteOfficial website

Manuela Schwesig (German pronunciation: [manuˈeːla ˈʃʋeːzɪç];[1] née Frenzel,[2] born 23 May 1974) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party serving as Minister President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since 4 July 2017, becoming the first woman to serve in that post. Previously she served as Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth in the third cabinet of Angela Merkel from 2013 to 2017. On 20 October 2023, she was elected President of the Bundesrat. Her one-year term started on 1 November 2023.[3]

Early life and education

[edit]

Born in Frankfurt (Oder),[4] East Germany, Schwesig grew up in the nearby town of Seelow.[5][6] In 1990, she played a small acting role in the DEFA film Forbidden Love, which had the title Verbotene Liebe in the original German and which was directed by Helmut Dziuba.[7] After graduation in 1992 from the Gymnasium auf den Seelower Höhen,[4] she completed studies in higher civil service (tax administration) of the federal state of Brandenburg. She attended the Training and Further Education Centre (Fachhochschule für Finanzen) in Königs Wusterhausen.[4]

Political career

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Career in local politics

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Schwesig became a member of SPD in 2003, at the age 29. She subsequently served as a member of the Schwerin City Council from 2004 to 2008.

Career in national politics

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Schwesig became a Federal Deputy Leader of the SPD on 13 November 2009 alongside Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel and Olaf Scholz (and later Aydan Özoğuz and Ralf Stegner). She was then appointed State Minister of Social Affairs and Health in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern on 6 October 2008, under the leadership of Minister‐President Erwin Sellering. She served as minister and became member of the Landtag of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern from 4 September 2011 until she joined the federal government.

Ahead of the 2009 elections, German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier included Schwesig, then a relatively unknown face to the German public, in his shadow cabinet of 10 women and eight men for the Social Democrats' campaign to unseat incumbent Angela Merkel as Chancellor.[8] During the campaign, Schwesig served as shadow minister for family affairs[9] who advocated the party's family-friendly policies.[10]

Schwesig was a SPD delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2010, 2012, 2017 and 2022.[11]

In 2011, Schwesig led high-level talks with Chancellor Angela Merkel and Labor Minister Ursula von der Leyen for the then-opposition Social Democrats on reaching a compromise over how to increase basic social welfare benefits for the unemployed.[12]

Following the 2013 elections, Schwesig served as the Social Democrats' main negotiator in the working group for families, women and equal opportunities when Germany's two largest parties, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservative bloc and the left-leaning Social Democrats, held talks on forming a broad coalition government.[13]

Federal Minister of Family Affairs, 2013–2017

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In the third Merkel cabinet, Schwesig, who at 39 was the youngest cabinet member,[14] became the Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth – a position also occupied by Merkel in her first cabinet post under German Chancellor Helmut Kohl in the early 1990s.[15]

At an SPD convention in late 2015, Schwesig received 93 percent of members' ballots, the best result of any of the party leadership.[16] Shortly after, the party's board mandated Schwesig and Thomas Oppermann with the task of drafting an electoral program for the 2017 federal elections.[17]

Minister‐president of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, 2017–present

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On 30 May 2017, Schwesig announced that she would seek the succession of Erwin Sellering as Minister‐president of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.[18] As consequence, she resigned as federal minister, the resignation taking effect on 2 June.[19] On 4 July 2017, Schwesig became Minister‐president of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

As one of the state's representatives at the Bundesrat, Schwesig serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs. She also chairs the German-Russian Friendship Group set up by the Bundesrat and the Russian Federation Council.

In the negotiations to form a fourth coalition government under Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, Schwesig led the working group on education policy, alongside Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Stefan Müller and Hubertus Heil.

Together with Doris Ahnen, Niels Annen, Oliver Kaczmarek and Anke Rehlinger, Schwesig co-chaired the SPD's extraordinary 2018 convention, during which the party elected Andrea Nahles as its first-ever female leader.[20]

From June 2019, Schwesig – together with her party colleagues Malu Dreyer and Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel – was chosen as the SPD's interim leader, following former leader Andrea Nahles' decision to step down and leave politics. In September 2019, Schwesig announced she had been diagnosed with breast cancer and would step down from her duties at national level.[21]

In 2019, she was appointed by the Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community to serve on the committee that oversaw the preparations for the 30th anniversary of German reunification.[22]

Schwesig led the SPD into the 2021 state election. Though the CDU had led the polls throughout 2020, the SPD experienced a major resurgence from July. By this time, Schwesig had established herself as a prominent and popular figure both within the state and across the country. The party's campaign was heavily based around her, running with the slogan "Die Frau für MV" ("the woman for Mecklenburg-Vorpommern"). The SPD a landslide victory with 39.6% of votes while the AfD, CDU, and Left all suffered losses. They chose to seek a coalition government with the Left, breaking the grand coalition with the CDU after fifteen years in power.[23][24]

Political positions

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Child protection

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Schwesig is a member of the German Child Protection League. Her main focus is to fight child poverty and provide for good state childcare facilities. In 2009 she supported the idea promoted by Minister Ursula von der Leyen to block websites featuring child pornography.

On her order the employees of nursery schools in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern have to declare their commitment to uphold the principles of Germany's basic laws (the constitution).

Advancement of women

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Schwesig in 2014

In 2014, Schwesig helped introducing a bill mandating compulsory quotas for women on the supervisory boards of the Germany's top companies,[25] which was passed in early 2015. Also in early 2015, she called for a law that would force companies to allow female employees to see how their salaries compare with those of male colleagues.[26] Meanwhile, she has been championing a substantial expansion of state-sponsored child care facilities.[27]

In 2016, Schwesig successfully introduced changes to Germany's maternity protection legislation by expanding the laws to include groups of women not explicitly covered (including school and university students, women working as interns, and women pursuing vocational training) and attempting to reduce bureaucratic red tape.[28]

Alongside Dietmar Woidke, Schwesig was instrumental in the Bundesrat's 2020 selection of Ines Härtel as the Federal Constitutional Court’s first judge from East Germany.[29]

Political extremism

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In a 2014 lawsuit before the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany, the far-right National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) complained about comments made by Schwesig during that year's parliamentary election campaign for the state of Thuringia. In a newspaper interview, Schwesig had said: "The number one goal is that the NPD does not make it into the parliament." The NPD accused the minister of breaching her duty of neutrality and interfering with the campaign, and made a complaint before the Federal Constitutional Court. The court ruled in December 2014 that Schwesig did not damage the NPD's right to a level playing field because her comments fell under the "political struggle of opinion."[30]

Controversy

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Nord Stream 2

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In her role as Minister President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Schwesig stated her strong support for Nord Stream 2; "We believe that it is right to build the pipeline. Nobody who is working on building the pipeline is doing anything wrong. The ones doing something wrong are those who are trying to stop the pipeline." [31] Her government created a foundation with the explicit goal, as written in its charter, of completing the Nord Stream 2 pipeline.[31] Amid a 2020 diplomatic row over the construction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, three U.S. senators − Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, and Ron Johnson – sent a letter to a Baltic Sea port operator in Schwesig's state, threatening the port's managers with “crushing legal and economic sanctions” if they continued to support the project servicing the Russian ships laying the pipe. In response, Schwesig called the letter "blackmail".[32]

After the poisoning of opposition figure Alexey Navalny, Schwesig insisted it should have no effect on the construction of the pipeline. Ultimately, the project was cancelled after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. Furthermore, Schwesig was revealed to have been colluding with the Russians, allowing Gazprom to run PR for the pipeline via her office and modifying her public speeches in accordance with the Russian demands.[33][34]

Schwesig has been listed by Politico among 12 Germans who got played by Putin.[35]

In February 2022, Schwesig lost a court case against member of the Bundestag Christoph Ploß. She had demanded he limit his criticisms of her politics but a district court determined that it was well within allowed freedom of expression.[36][37][38][39]

In January 2023, controversy arose over contacts Schewesig had with various people as part of Reuters research into Russian influence in Germany and German politics.[40] She had contact with Oleg Eremenko who had formerly worked for the Russian secret service (GRU) and now is the owner of a construction company in Berlin.[41] Event records show Eremenko was in contact during 2016 with Igor Girkin, a colonel in the Russian military intelligence service GRU, who had played a leading role in the Russian intervention in the Donbas and the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014. "Schwesig's spokesman Andreas Timm said ... that there had been 'no scheduled meeting' between the Prime Minister and Eremenko [and that] she took part in the event at the invitation of the city of Greifswald."[41]

In March 2024 media reported that Schwesing had intervened into the process of publication of an declaratively independent report on the options for closure of Stiftung Klima- und Umweltschutz MV (Climate and Environment Protection Foundation) which served as a Gazprom-sponsored lobbyist for Nord Stream 2. Schwesing manually deleted paragraphs from the report that suggested that closure of the foundation is feasible and desirable.[42]

Other activities

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Personal life

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Schwesig is married and has two children.[46]

She was diagnosed with breast cancer in September 2019 and subsequently resigned from her party offices at the federal level.[47] She later confirmed that the cancer was curable and underwent medical treatment.[48] On 12 May 2020, she announced that she had overcome the illness.[49]

References

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  1. ^ YouTube [dead link]
  2. ^ "Seelowerin im Kabinett". Märkische Onlinezeitung (in German). 16 December 2013.
  3. ^ "Manuela Schwesig, Präsidentin des Bundesrates". Der Bundesrat (in German). 20 October 2023.
  4. ^ a b c "Manuela Schwesig's website". Archived from the original on 4 December 2015. Retrieved 24 May 2023.
  5. ^ "Deutschlands jüngste Ministerin". Bild (in German). 4 October 2008.
  6. ^ "Die erstaunliche Karriere von Steinmeiers Mädchen". Die Welt (in German). 28 July 2009.
  7. ^ "Verbotene Liebe". Filmdatenbank. DEFA Stiftung. 19 April 1990. Retrieved 21 September 2020.
  8. ^ Bertrand Benoit (30 July 2009), Lagging SPD starts campaign Financial Times.
  9. ^ "Rising Star Paves Path to a Family Friendly Germany". Spiegel Online. 8 April 2009. Retrieved 4 September 2010.
  10. ^ Patrick Donahue (15 December 2013), Merkel’s Third-Term Cabinet: Social Democratic Party Ministers Bloomberg.
  11. ^ 17th Federal Convention, 13 February 2022, List of Members Bundestag.
  12. ^ Judy Dempsey (9 February 2011), Merkel Breaks Off Talks With Opposition International Herald Tribune.
  13. ^ Harriet Torry (18 November 2013), 30% Female Quota for German Boards Proposed: Parties in Coalition Negotiation Agreed to Put Forward Legislation Wall Street Journal.
  14. ^ Rainer Buergin (22 January 2014), Schaeuble as Merkel’s Dr. No Holds Coalition Purse Strings Bloomberg.
  15. ^ Patrick Donahue (15 December 2013), Merkel’s Third-Term Cabinet: Social Democratic Party Ministers Bloomberg.
  16. ^ Gabriel abgestraft, Stellvertreter gestärkt Tagesschau, 11 December 2015.
  17. ^ Oppermann und Schwesig sollen SPD-Wahlprogramm entwerfen Der Spiegel, 6 November 2015.
  18. ^ "Schwesig will auf Ministerpräsident Sellering folgen" [Schwesig wants take succession of Prime Minister Sellering]. NDR (in German). 30 May 2017. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  19. ^ "Schwesig will sich weiter in Bundespolitik einschalten" [Schwesig wants to remain active in federal politics]. NDR (in German). 30 May 2017. Retrieved 2 June 2017.
  20. ^ Protokoll des außerordentlichen Bundesparteitages Wiesbaden, 2018 Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
  21. ^ Judith Mischke (10 September 2019), German Social Democrat leader to resign after breast cancer diagnosis Politico Europe.
  22. ^ 30 Jahre Friedliche Revolution und Deutsche Einheit Federal Ministry of the Interior, Building and Community, press release of 3 April 2019.
  23. ^ ""The woman for MV" and her new government". ZDF (in German). 15 November 2021.
  24. ^ "How SPD power woman Manuela Schwesig defies her blows of fate". Stuttgarter Nachrichten (in German). 27 September 2021.
  25. ^ Alison Smale (26 November 2014), Germany Planning Quotas for Women in Boardrooms New York Times.
  26. ^ Louise Osborne (2 March 2015), Plan for 'equal wages' law in Germany meets with strong industry opposition The Guardian.
  27. ^ German court rules controversial child care subsidy unlawful Deutsche Welle, 21 July 2015.
  28. ^ Matt Zuvela (4 May 2015), Added protections for expecting and nursing mothers pass German cabinet Deutsche Welle.
  29. ^ Anne Hähnig, Martin Machowecz and Heinrich Wefing (1 July 2020), Ines Härtel: Eine Richterin als der ultimative Kompromiss Die Zeit.
  30. ^ Far-right NPD party loses case over German minister's opinion Deutsche Welle, 16 December 2014.
  31. ^ a b Escritt, Thomas; Marsh, Sarah (11 February 2022). "Explainer: How a German 'climate' fund set out to help Russia dodge U.S. sanctions". Reuters. Retrieved 5 March 2022.
  32. ^ Matthew Karnitschnig (10 August 2020), Germany blames Trump in pursuit of Nord Stream 2 pipeline Politico Europe.
  33. ^ "Nord Stream 2 should not be used to punish Russia, says German state leader". Reuters. 11 September 2020.
  34. ^ Berlin, James Jackson. "German state leader Manuela Schwesig 'colluded with Russians on gas pipeline'".
  35. ^ "12 Germans who got played by Putin". 5 May 2022. Retrieved 24 May 2023.
  36. ^ Stefan Ludmann (23 February 2022). "Beziehungen zu Russland: Schwesig schwenkt um". Tagesschau.de (in German). Retrieved 15 December 2022. [translated]: And now there is a legal defeat: Schwesig failed before the district court in Hamburg in an attempt to have the CDU member of the Bundestag, Christoph Ploß, ban critical statements about their course in Russia. The prime minister felt misrepresented.
  37. ^ sueddeutsche.de / dpa (22. February 2022): Schwesig scheitert mit Unterlassungsantrag gegen Ploß
  38. ^ lto.de: Zulässige Meinung oder Falschzitat?
  39. ^ Arnd Diringer, Rechtsstreit auf Kosten des Steuerzahlers, DIE WELT from 26. February 2022
  40. ^ Falcón, Belén Ríos (7 October 2022). "The Gazprom-Lobby". correctiv.org. Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  41. ^ a b Moscow's influence in Germany : Manuela Schwesig and the Russian secret service agent, Tagesspiegel, 4 January 2023.
  42. ^ Thiele, Ulrich (7 March 2024). ""Vertuschungsversuche auf höchster Regierungsebene": Änderungen von Klimastiftungs-Gutachten sorgt für scharfe Kritik an Manuela Schwesig". Business Insider (in German). Retrieved 9 March 2024.
  43. ^ Members Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES).
  44. ^ Board of Trustees Deutsches Museum.
  45. ^ Board of Trustees Total E-Quality.
  46. ^ "Bundesfamilienministerin: Schwesig bringt Tochter zur Welt". Spiegel Online (in German). 8 March 2016.
  47. ^ "Ministerpräsidentin Schwesig über Krebserkrankung: "Ich habe schon einige Kämpfe in meinem Leben geführt"". Spiegel Online (in German). 10 September 2019.
  48. ^ "Rising star of Germany's SPD quits as interim party chief due to illness". WSAU. Retrieved 10 September 2019.
  49. ^ "Manuela Schwesig hat Krebstherapie erfolgreich abgeschlossen" (in German). Spiegel Online. 12 May 2020. Retrieved 12 May 2020.
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Media related to Manuela Schwesig at Wikimedia Commons

Political offices
Preceded by Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth
2013–2017 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Minister-President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
2017–present 		Incumbent
Preceded by President of the Bundesrat
2023–present
Order of precedence
Preceded by
Olaf Scholz
as Chancellor
 Order of precedence of Germany
President of the Bundesrat 		Succeeded by
Stephan Harbarth
as President of the Federal Constitutional Court
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