Party political offices

Leader of the Social Democratic Party in the Bundestag
In office 29 September 2009 – 16 December 2013
Chief Whip	Thomas Oppermann
Preceded by	Peter Struck
Succeeded by	Thomas Oppermann
Leader of the Social Democratic Party
Acting 7 September 2008 – 18 October 2008
Deputy	Andrea Nahles Peer Steinbrück Himself
Preceded by	Kurt Beck
Succeeded by	Franz Müntefering
Deputy Leader of the Social Democratic Party
In office 26 October 2007 – 13 November 2009
Leader	Kurt Beck Himself (acting) Franz Müntefering
Preceded by	Bärbel Dieckmann
Succeeded by	Olaf Scholz

Political civil servant

Head of the Chancellery
In office 31 July 1999 – 22 November 2005
Chancellor	Gerhard Schröder
Preceded by	Bodo Hombach
Succeeded by	Thomas de Maizière
State Secretary at the Chancellery Commissioner for the Federal Intelligence Services
In office 27 October 1998 – 22 November 2005
Chancellor	Gerhard Schröder
Preceded by	Bernd Schmidbauer (as Minister of State)
Succeeded by	Thomas de Maizière
Head of the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony
In office 30 October 1996 – 27 October 1998
Minister-President	Gerhard Schröder
Preceded by	Willi Waike
Succeeded by	Peter-Jürgen Steiner

Parliamentary constituencies

Member of the Bundestag for Brandenburg an der Havel – Potsdam-Mittelmark I – Havelland III – Teltow-Fläming I
In office 27 October 2009 – 19 March 2017
Preceded by	Margrit Spielmann
Succeeded by	Angelika Krüger-Leißner

Personal details

Born

5 January 1956 (age 69)
Detmold, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany

Political party

Social Democratic Party

Spouses

Elke Büdenbender

(m. 1995)

Children

Alma mater

University of Giessen

Signature

Military service

Branch/service

Bundeswehr

Years of service

1974–1976

Unit

German Air Force

Frank-Walter Steinmeier ( born 5 January 1956) is a German politician who has served as President of Germany since 2017. He was previously federal minister for foreign affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017, as well as vice chancellor of Germany from 2007 to 2009. Steinmeier was chairman-in-office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2016.

Early life and education

Steinmeier was born in 1956 in Detmold. Although his full name is Frank-Walter, his friends call him Frank. His father, a carpenter, was affiliated with the Church of Lippe (one of Germany's few Calvinist regional church bodies, and a member church of the Protestant Church of Germany). His mother, born in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), came as a refugee from a Lutheran part of Silesia during the flight and expulsion of Germans after World War II.

Following his Abitur, Steinmeier did his military service from 1974 to 1976, then studied law and political science at the Justus Liebig University Giessen, where Brigitte Zypries was a fellow student. In 1982 he passed his first and in 1986 his second state examination in law. Steinmeier worked as a scientific assistant to the professor of public law and political science at Giessen University until he obtained his doctorate of law in 1991. His dissertation explored the state's role in preventing homelessness.

Early career

Steinmeier became an adviser in 1991 for Law of Communication media and media guidelines in the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony in Hanover. In 1993, he became director of the Personal Office for the prime minister of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schröder. In 1996, he became the Secretary of State and head of the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony.

Political career at federal level

Schröder Federal Chancellery, 1998–2005

In November 1998 Steinmeier was appointed as Secretary of State, a junior Chancellery bureaucrat, and Commissioner for the Federal Intelligence Services at the office of the chancellor following Schröder's election victory. He replaced Bodo Hombach as the head of the office of the chancellor in 1999, after the latter entered European Union politics. He retained his Secretary of State rank and therefore was the only Head of the Chancellery to not be appointed Minister for Special Affairs, i. e. not to have cabinet rank, from 1984 to today. During this period Steinmeier was also one of the advisors to Schröder. He was crucial in securing a red-green majority in parliament for Schröder's contentious "Agenda 2010" of economic reforms. Because of his effective management beyond the spotlight of politics, he was nicknamed Die Graue Effizienz (lit. the grey efficiency) – a pun on Graue Eminenz, the German for grey eminence.

As Commissioner for the Federal Intelligence Services (a title often held by the Head of the Chancellery) Steinmeier was responsible for co-ordinating Germany's intelligence services. In 2003, he supported Schröder in his controversial decision to forge a coalition with Russia and France against the U.S.-led war against Iraq. Meanwhile, he approved the decision to install a German intelligence officer in the Qatar-based office of General Tommy Franks, the American commander of the U.S. invasion in Iraq, who passed on to the United States information being gathered in Baghdad by two German intelligence officers operating there.

In 2004, Steinmeier participated in diplomatic negotiations settling on compensation payments with Libya for victims of the 1986 terrorist bombing of the LaBelle disco in Berlin.

A major controversy during Steinmeier's term as chief of staff was the imprisonment of a German-born Turk, Murat Kurnaz, in Guantánamo Bay from 2002 until August 2006. Steinmeier denied during a parliamentary inquiry in March 2007 that he had blocked Kurnaz's release. Instead, he claimed that Berlin had feared Kurnaz was a threat and should go to Turkey, not Germany, if released. Only after Merkel's election was Kurnaz released and brought back to Germany.

Frank-Walter Steinmeier (2009)

First term as Foreign Minister, 2005–2009

On 22 November 2005, after the 2005 federal elections, Steinmeier became Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Grand coalition cabinet led by Angela Merkel. He was the first SPD Foreign Minister since Willy Brandt (1966–1969).

Upon taking office, Steinmeier led the preparations for Germany taking over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2007.

Following Franz Müntefering's departure from the cabinet on 21 November 2007, Steinmeier also filled the position of Vice-Chancellor.

During his time in office, Steinmeier was widely regarded as having good working relations with Angela Merkel but often taking a different stance on foreign affairs. By and large, he allowed Merkel to set the pace in foreign policy, working harmoniously with her on a range of foreign policy issues, from confronting Iran over its nuclear program to negotiating binding goals to combat climate change. In one significant foreign policy disagreement, Steinmeier held in 2009 that Germany should by 2013 lay the groundwork for withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, a deployment that around two-thirds of Germans opposed by then. Unlike Merkel, he also favored Turkish entry into the European Union.

Also, Steinmeier became known for his rather Russia-friendly stance. He formulated a policy toward Russia deliberately reminiscent of "Ostpolitik", the eastward-facing policy pioneered by Chancellor Willy Brandt in the early 1970s. Together with Gernot Erler, the SPD's leading Russia expert and the deputy foreign minister, Steinmeier initiated Germany's so-called Partnership for Modernization with Russia (announced in 2008), which became an official EU policy in 2010.

In February 2009, Steinmeier became the first member of Merkel's cabinet to be received by the incoming Obama administration.

During his time in office, Steinmeier managed to extract German hostages from Iraq and Yemen. In 2007, he also succeeded in securing the release of a German citizen who was imprisoned in Iran for illegally entering the country's waters on a fishing expedition.

Steinmeier served as acting chairman of the SPD from 7 September 2008 to 18 October 2008. Domestically, throughout his term he was the only major politician with approval ratings consistently as high as or higher than Merkel's. This was helped by the especially high ratings foreign ministers generally receive in Germany.

Opposition leader, 2009–2013

On 7 September 2008, following the resignation of SPD chairman Kurt Beck, Steinmeier was chosen as the SPD candidate for chancellor for the 2009 federal elections and also designated as acting SPD Chairman, pending the return of Müntefering to that position. In his election campaign, he argued for new tax rules to deter high executive pay and bonuses, and for minimum wages to slow the growing gap between Germany's highest and lowest earners. He also focused on improving public healthcare.

Germany's Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier addressing a dinner of the World Jewish Congress in Berlin, September 2014

After the SPD's decisive defeat in the elections – the party's worst performance since World War II by then – Steinmeier, who had been elected to represent Brandenburg an der Havel – Potsdam-Mittelmark I – Havelland III – Teltow-Fläming I, was elected Peter Struck's successor as chairman of the SPD's parliamentary group in the Bundestag, and as such leader of the opposition. After a hospitalization for donating a kidney to his wife in August 2010, Steinmeier returned to his office in October 2010.

During his time as leader of the parliamentary opposition, Steinmeier regularly accused Angela Merkel's government of increasing the national debt and pandering to the rich. In 2011, Steinmeier argued that Merkel's decision to appoint her economics adviser, Jens Weidmann, to be the next head of the Bundesbank undermined the political independence and public trust in the German central bank.

In late 2012, Steinmeier was once again considered a possible candidate to challenge Chancellor Angela Merkel in the 2013 general election, but soon withdrew from the contest. As a consequence, SPD chairman Sigmar Gabriel later announced that the leadership agreed to nominate Peer Steinbrück.

Second term as Foreign Minister, 2013–2017

Steinmeier with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry in March 2015

After the elections of 2013 and the new grand coalition government, Steinmeier was appointed foreign minister for a second time in December 2013. He replaced Guido Westerwelle, who had signed the P5+1 accord with Iran in November 2013. His deputies were Michael Roth (SPD) and Maria Böhmer (CDU). Upon taking office, Steinmeier initiated an ambitious review of Germany's foreign policy, holding meetings nationwide and drawing in more than 12,000 people who worked at the ministry or abroad.

Steinmeier with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif in Tehran, February 2016

Over the course of 2014, Steinmeier alternated with Merkel as Germany's most popular politician in polls of eligible voters.

Political positions

European integration

Polish President Lech Kaczyński, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Steinmeier, and Anna Fotyga in Brussels, June 2007

Steinmeier with Vladimir Putin, March 2016

Yitzhak Herzog, President of the State of Israel, and German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, November 2023

The ministers of foreign affairs and diplomats announcing an Iran nuclear deal framework in Lausanne in April 2015

After Germany had only narrowly managed to avoid a deficit warning from the European Commission in 2002, Schröder and Steinmeier became the driving forces behind weakening the Stability and Growth Pact, a rule-based framework for the coordination of national fiscal policies originally intended as the guarantor of a stable euro.

In a joint article in the Financial Times on 14 December 2010, Steinmeier and Peer Steinbrück proposed to solve the European debt crisis with "a combination of a haircut for debt holders, debt guarantees for stable countries and the limited introduction of European-wide bonds in the medium term, accompanied by more aligned fiscal policies". In February 2011, Steinmeier proposed Steinbrück as a candidate to lead the European Central Bank.

Under Steinmeier's parliamentary leadership, the Social Democrats raised pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to agree to more burden-sharing to stem the euro zone crisis, repeatedly calling on her to assume greater risks to avert a breakup of the single currency. In both February and November 2012, his parliamentary group voted largely in favour of the Merkel government's proposal for eurozone bailout packages for Greece, while criticizing the measures as being "not an enduring solution for the Greeks". In July 2014, he helped build the opposition's support for a euro zone rescue package for Spanish banks. Later, as foreign minister, he publicly advised against "frivolous" talk of a Greek withdrawal from the eurozone, calling for a serious search for a solution.

Reacting to a growth of euro-skeptic political parties across Europe by early 2014, Steinmeier offered the United Kingdom limited support on renegotiating the Treaties of the European Union, saying Germany wanted to see Britain's influence in the "midst" of the EU, not on "the sidelines". After Britain's vote to leave the EU in 2016, he argued that the union lacked the cohesion to undertake major new integration steps and should instead focus on migration, high youth unemployment and security.

At the same time, Steinmeier worked to develop new formats and revive new ones. In December 2014, he met with the foreign ministers from the three Nordic countries Denmark, Finland and Sweden – Margot Wallström, Erkki Tuomioja and Martin Lidegaard – for the so-called "N3 + 1" format to discuss issues of common concern for the first time.

In August 2016, he joined French foreign minister Jean-Marc Ayrault in pledging to "reinvigorate" the Weimar Triangle and published a document 'A strong Europe in a world of uncertainties'.

Between 2014 and 2016, he visited the three Baltic states – Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania – six times, the highest number of visits by any German Foreign Minister.

Also in late 2014, Steinmeier and his British counterpart Philip Hammond united in a bid to end a deadlock in relations between Bosnia and the European Union, arguing that the EU should abandon its insistence on changes to Bosnia's electoral code as a precondition for a Stabilization and Association Agreement on the path to EU membership.

Energy policy

In 2007, Steinmeier said he opposes European Commission proposals on unbundling the ownership of energy networks in the European Union, as it was proposed in the Third Energy Package.

Presidency (2017–present)

President Joachim Gauck announced in June 2016 that he would not run for re-election, resulting in a search for a candidate to succeed him. In November 2016, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives agreed with the Social Democrats to support Steinmeier's candidacy for president in the presidential election, scheduled for 12 February 2017.

On 12 February 2017 Germany's 16th Federal Convention elected Steinmeier President on the first ballot, with 931 votes out of a total of 1,260.

Steinmeier took office as President of Germany on 19 March 2017, after the expiration of his predecessor's term in office, and on 22 March 2017 he took the oath that newly invested presidents must take before a joint session of the Bundestag and the Bundesrat, according to the Basic Law.

Steinmeier with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko in Kyiv, May 2018

In October 2017, Steinmeier visited Putin and Gorbachev in Moscow. His visit was the first by one of his rank since 2010.

Second presidential term

Steinmeier with Finnish prime minister Sanna Marin in Helsinki, April 2022

On 13 February 2022 he was re-elected as president.

Other activities

German Coordinating-Council for Christian-Jewish Cooperation Organizations, member of the board (2009–2013)
Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), member
German Protestant Church Assembly, member of the board
German Protestant Institute of Archaeology, member of the board
International Journalists' Programmes, member of the board of trustees
Peace of Westphalia Prize, member of the jury
Rudolf Pichlmayr Foundation for Organ Transplantation, member of the board
Aktion Deutschland Hilft (Germany's Relief Coalition), member of the board of trustees (−2017)
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, ex-officio member of the board of trustees (−2017)
KfW, ex-officio member of the supervisory board (−2017)

Personal life

Steinmeier is married and has one daughter. On 24 August 2010, he donated a kidney to his wife Elke Büdenbender.

In 2015, Steinmeier served as best man at the wedding of Rüdiger Grube and Cornelia Poletto in Hamburg.

Steinmeier enjoys jazz, and is an avid football fan.

Steinmeier is a Reformed Protestant and an active member of the Reformed Bethlehem congregation in Berlin-Neukölln. He was baptized into his father's church (the Church of Lippe) as a youth.

Recognition

Honorary appointment

Honorary doctorate of the Ural State Technical University, Russia (2010)
Willy Brandt Prize (2013)
Honorary citizen of Reims (2015)
Honorary doctorate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel (2015)
Honorary doctorate of the University of Piraeus, Greece (2015)
Honorary doctorate of the University of Paderborn (2016)
Toleranzpreis der Evangelischen Akademie Tutzing (2016)
Ignatz Bubis Award (2017)
World Food Programme's Hunger Hero Award (2017)
Honorary doctorate of the Lebanese University (2018)
Leo Baeck Medal (2021)
Henry A. Kissinger Prize (2022)

Honours

National honours

Grand Master of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (19 March 2017 – Present)
Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (19 March 2017)

Foreign honours

Austria: Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash of the Order of Merit of the Austrian Republic (23 April 2016)
Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (5 December 2023)
Bulgaria: First Class of the Order of Stara Planina (20 September 2007)
Cyprus: Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III (12 February 2024)
Denmark: Knight of the Order of the Elephant (10 November 2021)
Ecuador: Grand Collar of the National Order of Merit (13 February 2019)
France: Grand Officer of the National Order of Legion of Honour (26 January 2017)
Finland: Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the White Rose of Finland (17 September 2018)
Iceland: Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the Falcon (12 June 2019)
Italy:
- Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (17 September 2019)
- Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (21 March 2006)
Latvia: Commander Grand Cross with Chain of the Order of the Three Stars (19 February 2019)
Luxembourg: Knight of the Order of the Gold Lion of the House of Nassau (10 July 2023)
Netherlands: Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion (5 July 2021)
Norway: Grand Cross of the Royal Norwegian Order of Merit (15 October 2007)
Portugal:
- Grand Collar of the Order of Prince Henry (1 March 2018)
- Grand Cross of the Order of Merit (2 March 2009)
Romania: Collar of the Order of the Star of Romania (24 May 2023)
Slovakia: Grand Cross or (1st Class) of the Order of the White Double Cross (17 November 2017)
Slovenia: Member of the Order for Exceptional Merits (13 October 2022)
Sovereign Military Order of Malta: Collar of the Order pro Merito Melitensi (21 October 2019)
Spain: Knight of the Collar of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (11 October 2022)
Sweden: Knight of the Royal Order of the Seraphim (7 September 2021)
United Kingdom: Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath (29 March 2023)