Alexander Graf Lambsdorff | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of theBundestag forNorth Rhine-Westphalia | |
| In office 24 October 2017 – 8 July 2023 | |
| Succeeded by | Katharina Willkomm |
| Constituency | FDP List |
| Member of the European Parliament forGermany | |
| In office 1 July 2004 – 2017 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Alexander Sebastian Léonce von der Wenge Graf Lambsdorff (1966-11-05)5 November 1966 (age 59) |
| Political party | Free Democratic Party |
| Spouse | Franziska Gräfin Lambsdorff |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | University of Bonn Georgetown University |
| Website | Official website |
Alexander Sebastian Léonce von der Wenge Graf Lambsdorff (born 5 November 1966), commonly known asAlexander Graf Lambsdorff is aGermanpolitician of theFree Democratic Party of Germany (FDP), part of theAlliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe,[1] who has been serving as theGerman ambassador to Russia since 2023.[2]
Previously, Lambsdorff served as a Member of theBundestag (MP) from 2017 to 2023 and asMember of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2004 to 2017.
A member of the formernoble Lambsdorff family, his name reflects anImperial Russiancomital title.
Lambsdorff grew up inHamburg,Brussels, andBonn, attending the Catholic Academic High SchoolAloisiuskolleg at Bonn-Bad Godesberg until 1985, before going up to theUniversity of Bonn.
From 1991 until 1993 Lambsdorff studied atGeorgetown University on aFulbright Scholarship graduating as aMA in history and anMS in Foreign Service (1993).
After diplomatic training, Lambsdorff served on the German Policy Planning Staff (together withJorgo Chatzimarkakis, his contemporary and fellowFDPMEP) before becoming director of the Bundestag office of former German Foreign MinisterKlaus Kinkel, after the FDP left government in1998.[3]
Lambsdorff was first elected to theEuropean Parliament in2004 and was confirmed in2009 and2014. Held in high regard, he was widely viewed as a possible successor toGraham Watson as leader of theAlliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group in the parliament, but the post went instead toGuy Verhofstadt.[3] From 2011, Lambsdorff chaired the 12-member German FDP delegation in the European Parliament, before subsequently being elected Leader of the European Liberals and Democrats Group in 2014.
Until 2014, Lambsdorff served as member of theEuropean Parliament'sCommittee on Foreign Affairs and the EU-Delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China. He also served as a deputy on theEuropean Parliament Committee on Culture and Education and on the Delegation to the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee DACP as well as theACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. During his tenure, he steered efforts to create a single EU-market for Defence and Security-related equipment as parliamentaryrapporteur in 2009.[4] In 2010, he joined theFriends of the EEAS, an unofficial and independent pressure group formed because of concerns that theHigh Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security PolicyCatherine Ashton was not paying sufficient attention to the Parliament and was sharing too little information on the formation of theEuropean External Action Service.[5]
Following the2014 elections to the European Parliament, Lambsdorff became a member of theEuropean Parliament Committee on International Trade. In this capacity, he has served as the parliament's rapporteur on the EU's agreement on the participation ofCroatia in theEuropean Economic Area.
Lambsdorff has led EU-Election Observer Missions on numerous occasions: as head of the EU-Election Observation Mission during the2007–08 Kenyan crisis, he described the presidential elections as "flawed".[6] Other elections he has overseen include theBangladeshi general election in 2008,[7] the first freeGuinean presidential elections in 2010[8] and theMyanma general election in 2015.
In January 2014, at the FDP Convention in Bonn, Lambsdorff was elected as his party's lead candidate for theEuropean Parliament elections receiving a resounding 86.2% of the vote.[9]
From 2014, Lambsdorff served as one of the fourteenVice Presidents of the European Parliament who sit in for the president in presiding over the plenary. In this capacity, he was also in charge of representing the parliament at multilateral bodies, including theUnited Nations and theWorld Trade Organization, as well as of the parliament's contacts with European business associations.[10] In addition, he was a member of the Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group (DEG), which oversees the Parliament's election observation missions.[11]
Lambsdorff has been a member of the GermanBundestag since the2017 national elections. Throughout his time in parliament, he served as one of six deputy chairpersons of the FDP parliamentary group under the leadership of its successive chairsChristian Lindner (2017–2021) andChristian Dürr (since 2021), where he oversaw the group's activities on foreign policy.[12] From 2022, he also was a member of theParliamentary Oversight Panel (PKGr), which provides parliamentary oversight of Germany's intelligence servicesBND,BfV andMAD.[13]
In addition, Lambsdorff chaired the German-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group.
Following the2017 state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Lambsdorff was part of the FDP team in the negotiations withArmin Laschet'sCDU on a coalition agreement. He led his party's delegation in the working group on European affairs; his co-chair of the CDU wasMatthias Kerkhoff.[14]
In the negotiations to form a so-calledtraffic light coalition of theSocial Democrats (SPD), theGreen Party and the FDP following the2021 federal elections, Lambsdorff led his party's delegation in the working group on foreign policy, defence, development cooperation and human rights; his co-chairs from the other parties wereHeiko Maas andOmid Nouripour.[15]
In March 2024, Lambsdorff – alongside other EU ambassadors – attended the funeral of opposition leaderAlexei Navalny.[16] Also in March 2024, Russia's foreign ministry summoned Lambsdorff again after Russian media published an audio recording of senior German military officials discussing weapons for Ukraine and a potential strike by Kyiv on a bridge in Crimea.[17]
Lambsdorff has become increasingly critical of anaccession of Turkey to the European Union and publicly declared that accession talks should be suspended until the Turkish government returns to the direction of the EU.[18][19] In 2011, he accusedPrime MinisterRecep Tayyip Erdoğan of using "gunboat rhetoric" in his statements about Israel, adding that "with a strident anti-Israel course, it isn't making any friends in Europe."[20] On the2014 post-election protests in Turkey, he commented: "There are more journalists in jail [in Turkey] than in China or Iran and now the Prime Minister wants to close downYouTube andTwitter because people are saying things he doesn't like."[21] When Erdoğan, then in his position asPresident of Turkey, disparaged German presidentJoachim Gauck as a "pastor" in 2014, Lambsdorff demanded that "the negotiations [on EU accession] should be put in a deep freeze."[22]
Following BritishPrime MinisterDavid Cameron's veto of EU-wide treaty change to tackle theEuropean debt crisis in 2011, Lambsdorff was quoted by German weeklyDer Spiegel as saying: "It was a mistake to admit the British into the European Union."[23]
WhenChancellorAngela Merkel's government opted in 2011 to abstain fromUnited Nations Security Council Resolution 1973 authorizing military force against Libya, Lambsdorff publicly criticized his fellow FDP member and then Germany's Foreign MinisterGuido Westerwelle, arguing that "Germany's vote has weakened the EU."[24]
Along with his fellow parliamentariansMarietje Schaake,Ramon Tremosa and members of theGreens/EFA group, Lambsdorff nominatedLeyla Yunus, imprisoned Azerbaijani human rights activist and director of the Institute of Peace and Democracy, for the2014 Sakharov Prize.[25]
As a consequence of theEuropean debt crisis, Lambsdorff told theFinancial Times Deutschland in 2012 that it might make sense to give theEuropean Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs greater influence over euro-zone countries' budgets.[26]
Following the2014 European elections, Lambsdorff openly rejectedPierre Moscovici's nomination as European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs, Taxation and Customs, stating that Moscovici should be held accountable for France's rising deficit and worsening economic situation.[27]
In December 2014, Lambsdorff proposed that theEnglish language should be mastered by servants of thepublic administration, and should later become anofficial language ofGermany, in addition toGerman. According to Lambsdorff, as experienced in other countries with a good knowledge of English in public institutions, this should help to attract more skilled migrants to preventlabor shortage, to ease business for investors and to establish a more welcoming culture.[28] As evaluated by a representativeYouGov survey, 59 percent of all Germans would welcome the establishment of English as an official language in the whole European Union.[29]
Count Alexander Lambsdorff is a member of theBaltic branch of the noble Lambsdorff family; his family branch emigrated fromWestphalia to the Baltic region in the early 15th century and was recognised as noble inCourland in 1620. The family owned large estates in modern-day Latvia and Estonia, and family members distinguished themselves as military officers in the service of theRussian Empire. One of Alexander Lambsdorff's ancestors, Count Matthias von der Wenge Lambsdorff, was a Russian general and was conferred the hereditarycomital title in 1817 byAlexander I of Russia.[39] In 1880 the family was authorised by royal licence to use the titlesBaron of the Wenge andCount of Lambsdorff in the Kingdom of Prussia. His father, Hagen Graf Lambsdorff (born 1935), was the first German Ambassador to Latvia from 1991 and later Ambassador to the Czech Republic from 1999 to 2001; his uncle,Otto Graf Lambsdorff (1926–2009), was a prominent liberal politician and Federal Minister for Economic Affairs from 1977 to 1982.
In 1994, Lambsdorff married Franziska vonKlitzing, daughter of Werner von Klitzing (1934-2022) and his wife,Princess Osterlind of Wied,[40] by whom he has two children.[41]
Regarding personal names: Until 1919,Graf was a title, translated as 'Count', not a first or middle name. The female form isGräfin. In Germany, it has formed part of family names since 1919.
It is equivalent to the noble rank ofearl (female form:countess).
Media related toAlexander Graf Lambsdorff at Wikimedia Commons
