Franziska Brantner | |
|---|---|
 Brantner in 2025 | |
| Leader ofAlliance 90/The Greens | |
| Assumed office 16 November 2024 Serving with Felix Banaszak | |
| Deputy |
|
| Preceded by | Ricarda Lang |
| Parliamentary State Secretary for Economic Affairs and Climate Action | |
| In office 8 December 2021 – 6 May 2025 | |
| Chancellor | Olaf Scholz |
| Minister | Robert Habeck |
| Preceded by | Marco Wanderwitz |
| Member of theBundestag | |
| Assumed office 22 September 2013 | |
| Constituency | Heidelberg |
| Member of the European Parliament forGermany | |
| In office 14 July 2009 – 22 September 2013 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1979-08-24)24 August 1979 (age 46) |
| Political party | The Greens (since 1996) |
| Children | 1 |
| Alma mater | |
Franziska Katharina Brantner (born 24 August 1979) is a German politician of theGreen Party who has been serving as a member of theGerman Parliament since 2013. Since 2024, she has also been serving as co-leader of Alliance 90/The Greens, alongsideFelix Banaszak.[1]
In addition to her parliamentary mandate, Brantner served asParliamentary State Secretary at theFederal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action in thecoalition government ofChancellorOlaf Scholz from 2021 to 2025.[2] In this capacity, her portfolio included European affairs, trade policy, and digitization.[3] Moreover, she was also the ministry's Special Coordinator for theExtractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).[4]
Brantner was aMember of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2009 to 2013.[5]
Brantner grew up inNeuenburg am Rhein in westernBaden-Württemberg. After graduating from the bilingualDeutsch-Französisches Gymnasium inFreiburg im Breisgau and gathering her first international experiences working at the offices of theHeinrich Böll Foundation inTel Aviv andWashington D.C. she studied political science with focus on International Affairs and European Policy at theSciences Po in Paris andSchool of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University inNew York City, where she graduated in 2004.[6]
In 2010, Brantner defended her PhD thesis "The reformability of theUnited Nations" at theUniversity of Mannheim where she used to be a research associate at the department for Political Science II atThomas König lab. Brantner lectured in Mannheim International Policy. From 2006 to 2007, she worked as a research associate at the European Studies Centre ofSt Antony's College, Oxford.
During the conference "Peking+5" of the UN Plenum in 2000 (following theUN World Women Conference of Peking in 1995) and until 2005 Brantner was Vice President of the "Youth Caucus" belonging to theUnited Nations Commission on the Status of Women. She also worked as a consultant for theUnited Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the Women’s Rights Organisation of the UN. In Brussels she coordinated a project in cooperation with the Frenchpresidency of the Council of the European Union in 2008, which developed the European master plan for theresolution 1325 of theUN Security Council.
In 2010, Brantner was (along with Richard Gowan) co-author of a study concerning the EU Human Rights Policy on behalf of theEuropean Council on Foreign Relations. According to the study, 127 out of the 192 members of theUnited Nations General Assembly voted against EU stances on human rights, up from 117 previous year; only half of democratic countries outside the Union voted with it most of the time.[7] For theBertelsmann Foundation, she worked in Brussels on the subjects of European Foreign Affairs and European answers to the banking crisis.
Brantner was a couple with former Green Party politicianBoris Palmer until 2013. The couple have a child born in May 2010.[8]
In 1996, Brantner became a member of the Green Party Youth at the age of 17. She then was part of the Green Party's local administration in Baden-Württemberg and their Federal Board. During her studies atSciences Po inParis she founded a Green university group and was co-organiser of the first "European Students Convent" in 2001/2002.
She is a member of theGeneral Assembly of theHeinrich Böll Foundation, was member of the Peace and Security Commission of the Green national party and was one of the authors of the party's manifesto for theEuropean election in 2009.
In the2009 European elections, Brantner obtained one of the 14 mandates of the GermanGreen Party in the European Parliament. She was member of theGreens–European Free Alliance group, then under the leadership ofDaniel Cohn-Bendit andRebecca Harms.
During her time in parliament, Brantner served as Member and coordinator on theCommittee on Foreign Affairs, and as substitute member on theSubcommittee on Security and Defence, theCommittee on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality and on theCommittee on Budgets.
Brantner also served as spokeswoman for foreign affairs of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament and Parliament’s standing rapporteur for theInstrument for Stability. She also was her group’s chief negotiator for the establishment of theEuropean External Action Service (EEAD). In 2010, she joined theFriends of the EEAS, a 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 the European External Action Service.[9]
In 2010 she supported theSpinelli Group initiative for more Europe.
During theeuro crisis, Brantner pleaded for solidarity and community liability.[10]
In 2013, Brantner was elected to theBundestag (the German Parliament) forAlliance '90/The Greens,[11] succeedingFritz Kuhn as representative of the 274th districtHeidelberg. Following the2013 federal election, she became a member of the Bundestag.
Between 2014 and 2017, Brantner served as chairwoman of the parliamentary Sub-Committee for Civilian Crisis Prevention and as member of the Committee on Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth. From 2017 until 2021, she has been serving assecretary of her parliamentary group, in this position assisting the group's chairsKatrin Göring-Eckardt andAnton Hofreiter. She also served on the Committee on European Affairs. From 2019 until 2021, she was a member of the German delegation to theFranco-German Parliamentary Assembly.[12]
In addition to her committee assignments, Brantner is a Deputy Chairwoman of the German-Egyptian Parliamentary Friendship Group. She is also part of the Elie Wiesel Network of Parliamentarians for the Prevention of Genocide and Mass Atrocities and against Genocide Denial.[13]
In the negotiations to form acoalition government under the leadership ofMinister-President of Baden-WürttembergWinfried Kretschmann following the2021 state elections, Brantner was part of the working group on European and international affairs, led by Theresa Schopper andDaniel Caspary.[14][15]
In the negotiations to form a so-calledtraffic light coalition of theSocial Democrats (SPD), the Green Party and the FDP following the2021 federal elections, Brantner led her party's delegation in the working group on European affairs; her co-chairs from the other parties wereUdo Bullmann andNicola Beer.[16]
Since becoming a member of the Bundestag, Brantner has regularly abstained from parliamentary votes on the participation of Germany inUnited Nations peacekeeping missions as well as in United Nations-mandated European Union peacekeeping missions, including those forAfghanistan (2014),Somalia (2014, 2015 and 2018),Darfur/Sudan (2013, 2014),South Sudan (2013 and 2014) and theCentral African Republic (2014). She voted against participation inEUTM Somalia (2014 and 2016). However, she voted in favor of extending the German mandate for the UN missions inMali (2014, 2016 and 2018),Lebanon (2014) andLiberia (2015).
Amid theEuropean migrant crisis in 2015, Brantner and fellow Green parliamentariansLuise Amtsberg,Annalena Baerbock,Manuel Sarrazin andWolfgang Strengmann-Kuhn called for more responsibilities for theEuropean Commission in managing the European Union's intake of refugees, a clearer definition of the mandate ofFrontex and EU-managed facilities for asylum seekers in their countries of origin.[27]
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