Dirk Niebel | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development | |
| In office 28 October 2009 – 17 December 2013 | |
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
| Preceded by | Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul |
| Succeeded by | Gerd Müller |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1963-03-29)29 March 1963 (age 62) Hamburg, West Germany |
| Political party | Free Democratic |
| Website | dirk-niebel.de |
Dirk Niebel (German pronunciation:[ˈdɪʁkˈniːbl̩]; born 29 March 1963) is a German politician. From 2009 to 2013, he served asFederal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development. From 2005 to 2009, he was secretary general of theFDP.
Niebel was born inHamburg on 29 March 1963. After hisFachhochschulreife (college entrance qualification) in 1983, Niebel lived for one year in aKibbutz in Israel. Later he served for eight years as anairborne infantry noncommissioned officer in theBundeswehr inCalw. He then studied at the German College of Public Administration inMannheim and finished his studies in 1993 asDiplom-Verwaltungswirt (similar to aMaster of Public Administration degree). In 1982, he spent a summer in thekibbutzKfar Giladi.[1]
From 1993 to 1998, Niebel worked at an employment bureau inSinsheim, a part of the Federal Employment Office ofHeidelberg.
Niebel is married and has three sons.
In 1977, Niebel joined theJunge Union, and in 1979, theCDU. He left both in 1981.
In 1990, he joined theFDP and was co-founder of theHeidelberg division of theJunge Liberale. Since 2003 Niebel has been a member of the Federal Board of the FDP and of the curatorship of theFriedrich Naumann Foundation. On 5 May 2005, the Federal Board elected him secretary general of the FDP with 92.4 percent of the votes.
Niebel was first elected a member of theBundestag in the1998 elections. From 2002 to 2005, he was chairman of the State group ofBaden-Württemberg in theparliamentary group of the FDP. From 1998, he served as speaker of the FDP parliamentary group on labor policy. In addition to this, Niebel was a member of the group of German-Israeli parliament members from 1998. At the2009 election, he stood unsuccessfully in the single member constituency ofHeidelberg, but was elected from the land list.
In the negotiations to form acoalition government of the CDU and the FDP following the2009 federal elections, Niebel led the FDP delegation in the working group on labour and social affairs; his counterpart of the CDU wasRonald Pofalla.
From 2000 to 2010, Niebel served as the vice president of theDeutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft (German Israeli Society).
In 2009, Niebel was appointed Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development in thesecond government ofChancellorAngela Merkel. His party ally Guido Westerwelle took over the office ofForeign Minister. During their time in office, Germanofficial development assistance came to 10.83 billion euros by 2013, making the country the world's third largest donor in 2012 and 2013.[2]
When he entered office, he said the ministry is "not a world social office" (Weltsozialamt), a statement which has been criticized by many organizations.[3] In his capacity as minister, Niebel served as Member of the Broadcasting Board ofDeutsche Welle; as Member of Board of Supervisory Directors ofKfW; and as Member of the Board of Governors of theWorld Bank. Early in his tenure, he led efforts for a structural reform of German development assistance. By 2011, the German government established the aid agencyDeutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), created by merging three aid organizations (German Technical Cooperation (GTZ),German Development Service (DED), andInWEnt). Also he createdEngagement Global gGmbH, a state owned company, which is now responsible for founding of development aid initiatives of civil society in Germany.
In early 2012, Niebel met withMyanmar's opposition leaderAung San Suu Kyi and was soon among those pushing for a complete removal of sanctions against the country rather than a more gradual easing. This was meant to reward Myanmar for its rapidshift towards democracy while allowing European companies to gain a foothold ahead of their U.S. counterparts.[4]
On 6 November 2011, Niebel inaugurated the newly established German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval), the first body to independently evaluate the performance of German development cooperation interventions.[5]
Under Niebel's leadership, Germany joined the United States and several other European states in late 2012 in partially suspendingofficial development assistance toRwanda after U.N. experts said senior Rwandan military officials had equipped, trained and directly commandedM23 rebels who briefly seized the city ofGoma in easternDemocratic Republic of Congo.[6] Only after negotiations with Rwandan Foreign MinisterLouise Mushikiwabo in early 2013, Niebel agreed to use the unfrozen aid for economic development and vocational training rather than directbudget support.[7]
Also in 2012, Niebel temporarily discontinued German payments into theGlobal Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria (GFATM) after a corruption scandal came to light;[8] at the time, Germany was the third largest donor to the Fund. Only in 2013, Niebel announced that Germany would contribute 1 billion euros (US$1.35 billion) to the GFATM for the period of 2012 to 2016.[9]
In December 2012, Niebel had various development projects frozen inEgypt amid concerns about the "domestic and political developments" in the country, and fears that a "new dictatorship" was developing underMohamed Morsi.[10]
Since 2015, Niebel has been an Advisor to the Executive Board ofRheinmetall.[11][12] More than half ofRheinmetall's sales in 2019 were in the Defence segment.
Niebel advocates a radical reform of the Federal Employment Agency (Bundesagentur für Arbeit). According to him, it should only manage and pay out theUnemployment insurance.[13]
In June 2010, the Israeli government ofPrime MinisterBenjamin Netanyahu prevented Niebel from visitingGaza. Niebel had wanted to see a €12 million, or $16.8 million,wastewater treatment facility financed by Germany. The Israeli government claimed at the time thatHamas, the Islamic militant group that rules Gaza, would exploit the visit.[14]
In January 2011, Niebel met with Israeli Deputy Foreign MinisterDanny Ayalon and signed a joint Declaration of Intent aimed to increase bilateral cooperation in effort to assist developing nations, agreeing to work towards the rehabilitation of the contaminatedLake Victoria inKenya, the main source of water for several states and one of the sources of the Nile River.[15] In February of the same year Ayalon and Niebel met again to examine aid to the newRepublic of South Sudan.[16]
In response to the2014 Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Act Niebel toldDeutsche Presse-Agentur that Germany's financial aid to Uganda will be cut, with a stepwise plan for this having already been made.[17]
In March 2011, Niebel caused diplomatic tensions when he accused theUnited Nations-backedmilitary alliance operating inLibya of hypocrisy. He argued that "it is notable that exactly those countries which are blithely dropping bombs in Libya are still drawing oil from Libya."[18] He also criticized the French government of PresidentNicolas Sarkozy for a lack of consultation andCatherine Ashton, the EU's foreign policy chief, for “suboptimal” co-ordination.[19]
In June 2012, Niebel attracted controversy after he had a carpet flown home fromAfghanistan for free. TheAfghan rug weighed 30 kilos and was flown on an intelligence service plane, avoiding import tax. The ministry said the transportation fromKabul to Berlin on the jet of the chief of thesecret service was done as "a personal favour". The centre-left opposition accused the minister of "brazen abuse" of office, which risked undermining Germany's efforts to promotegood governance in countries like Afghanistan.[20][21][22]
On 2 May 2012 the German TV magazineMonitor reported that after Niebel took the office of Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development over 40 members or staff of theFDP were hired to work in his ministry.[23] Later that year, he appointed a Green Party member as head of the newly established German Institute for Development Evaluation (DEval).[24]
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