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Ilse Aigner | |
|---|---|
 Aigner in 2023 | |
| President of the Landtag of Bavaria | |
| Assumed office 5 November 2018 | |
| Preceded by | Barbara Stamm |
| Deputy Minister President of Bavaria | |
| In office 10 October 2013 – 5 November 2018 | |
| Minister President | Horst Seehofer Herself(Acting) Markus Söder |
| Preceded by | Martin Zeil |
| Succeeded by | Hubert Aiwanger |
| Minister of Housing, Construction and Transport of Bavaria | |
| In office 21 March 2018 – 5 November 2018 | |
| Minister President | Markus Söder |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Hans Reichhart |
| Minister President of Bavaria Acting | |
| In office 14 March 2018 – 16 March 2018 | |
| Deputy | Herself |
| Preceded by | Horst Seehofer |
| Succeeded by | Markus Söder |
| Minister of the Economy, Energy, Technology and Media of Bavaria | |
| In office 10 October 2013 – 21 March 2018 | |
| Minister President | Horst Seehofer Herself(Acting) Markus Söder |
| Preceded by | Martin Zeil |
| Succeeded by | Franz Josef Pschierer |
| Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection | |
| In office 31 October 2008 – 30 September 2013 | |
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
| Preceded by | Horst Seehofer |
| Succeeded by | Hans-Peter Friedrich(Food and Agriculture) Heiko Maas(Consumer Protection) |
| Member of the Bundestag forStarnberg | |
| In office 27 September 1998 – 22 September 2013 | |
| Preceded by | Wolfgang Gröbl |
| Succeeded by | Alexander Radwan |
| Member of the Landtag of Bavaria forMiesbach | |
| Assumed office 15 September 2013 | |
| Preceded by | Alexander Radwan |
| In office 25 September 1994 – 13 September 1998 | |
| Constituency | List |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1964-12-07)7 December 1964 (age 60) |
| Political party | Christian Social Union |
Ilse Aigner (born 7 December 1964) is a German politician and member of theChristian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU).
Aigner was born inFeldkirchen-Westerham,Bavaria, and enteredAngela Merkel'sgrand coalition cabinet asFederal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection on 31 October 2008. She succeededHorst Seehofer, who had become Minister President of Bavaria. She left her position on 30 September 2013 after being elected as a member of the Bavarian parliament.
From 2013, she served as Deputy Minister-President of Bavaria. In addition, she served as State Minister of Economic Affairs; and Media, Energy and Technology (2013–2018) and State Minister of Construction and Transport (2018). AfterHorst Seehofer resigned asMinister President in order to becomeFederal Minister of the Interior on 14 March 2018, Aigner became acting Minister President until the election ofMarkus Söder as Minister President. After the2018 Bavarian State elections, she was elected asPresident of the Bavarian Landtag,[1] succeeding longterm presidentBarbara Stamm who had lost her seat in the election.[2]
Aigner completed a professional training as a telecommunications technician in 1985 and joined her parents’ electrical installation business.[3]
In 1990 she graduated from the technical academy with the degree of aState Certified Engineer and worked for several years forEurocopter in the development of helicopter electric systems.[3]
Aigner was elected first in 1994 to theBavarian State Parliament.[3]
From 1998 Aigner was a member of theGerman Bundestag, always winning an absolute majority of the votes in her electoral district.
| Election results for the Bundestag | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Electoral District | Votes for Aigner | Votes for opposing Candidate (SPD) | |
| 1998 | Starnberg | 57,0% | 26,2% | |
| 2002 | Starnberg | 63,5% | 21,9% | |
| 2005 | Starnberg | 59,7% | 22,0% | |
| 2009 | Starnberg | 54,0% | 15,8% | |
From 2002 to 2005, she was a member of the Budget Committee, where she served as her parliamentary group's rapporteur on the budgets of theFederal Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture (BMELV) and the aerospace technology portfolio of theFederal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). From 2005 to 2008, she served as her parliamentary group's spokesperson for education and research policy.
Aigner was a little-known member of parliament with no previous ministerial experience when she took over asFederal Minister for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture in thecabinet ofChancellorAngela Merkel in 2008,[4] replacingHorst Seehofer.[5]
During her time in office, Aigner steered through a 2011dioxins scare that saw contaminated eggs and meat from Germany going to six neighbouring countries.[6] In response, she imposed tough new safety standards for animal feed manufacturers, a move widely supported in the market to retain public confidence.[4]
She took a tough line against cultivation ofgenetically modified organisms (GMOs) in Germany but received praise from commodity traders when she supported imports of GMOs approved in the United States and South America to secure German supplies of soybeans for animal feed.[4] Meanwhile, she repeatedly expressed concern that outside financial investment in agricultural commodity markets distorts prices, instead calling for more transparency in commodity markets and clear visibility of the difference betweenfutures investment by industrial food buyers and financial investors.[7]
In 2009, Aigner caused a controversy when she called for requirements to publish the names and location of recipients ofCommon Agricultural Policy (CAP) subsidies to be “suspended” until the implications for data protection have been assessed. In response, theEuropean Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural DevelopmentMariann Fischer Boel threatened Germany with legal action.[8][9]
Aigner has been outspoken in her criticism of Facebook, which she has said needs to do to protect its users′ privacy.[10][11]In September 2011, she asked all federal ministers in Germany not to use Facebook for public relations and communication. In 2010, she criticizedGoogle over plans to give property owners a four-week deadline to stop their buildings from showing up on the company's then newly launchedStreet View mapping service, demanding that all requests be considered instead.[12]
Amid the German debate on the country'senergy transition to an energy portfolio dominated byrenewable energy, Aigner called in later 2012 for the partial nationalization of the country'selectrical grid in order to ensure thathigh-voltage power lines required to transport green energy from offshore windfarms and other sources to the industry-heavy regions of southern Germany are built.[13]
In 2012, Aigner announced she would leave her post to return to local politics in her home state of Bavaria following the2013 national elections, prompting speculation that she was eyeing the post of BavarianMinister-PresidentHorst Seehofer.[4] This seemed even more likely as she had been elected chairwoman of her party'sUpper Bavaria district association in 2011,[3] the largest and most powerful CSU subdivision.[14]
Following her return to Bavaria after the state's2013 elections, Aigner was namedMinister-PresidentHorst Seehofer′s deputy as well as Bavarian Minister for Economic Affairs, Media, Energy and Technology. As one of Bavaria's representatives at theBundesrat, she served on the Committee on Cultural Affairs; the Committee on Economic Affairs; and the Committee on the Environment, Nature Protection and Reactor Safety.
In the negotiations to form agrand coalition following the2013 national elections, Aigner led the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on economic affairs; her co-chair from the SPD wasHubertus Heil.[15] On 17 December 2013, she became the first woman to ever chair a meeting of the Bavarian State Government.[16]
In the cabinet of Minister-PresidentMarkus Söder, Aigner briefly served as State Minister of Construction and Transport in 2018. On the Bundesrat, she became a member of the Committee on Transport and of the Committee on Urban Development, Housing and Regional Planning.
On 5 November 2018, Aigner was elected with 198 of 205 votes as newPresident of the Bavarian Landtag.[17] After the2023 Bavarian state election she was re-elected with 164 of 200 votes.[18]
Aigner is a Roman Catholic. She is single and has no children.[24]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection 2001–2006 | Succeeded byas Minister of Flood and Agriculture |
| Succeeded byas Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection | ||
| Preceded by | Deputy Minister-President of Bavaria 2013–2018 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister-President of Bavaria Acting 2018 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | President of the Landtag of Bavaria 2018–present | Incumbent |
|}
| International | |
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| National | |
| People | |
