Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann | |
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 Official portrait, 2024 | |
| Chair of theCommittee on Security and Defence of theEuropean Parliament | |
| Assumed office 27 January 2025 | |
| Deputy | Christophe Gomart |
| Preceded by | Nathalie Loiseau |
| Member of the European Parliament | |
| Assumed office 16 July 2024 | |
| Preceded by | Nicola Beer |
| Constituency | Germany |
| Chair of theDefence Committee | |
| In office 15 December 2021 – 12 June 2024 | |
| Deputy | Henning Otte |
| Preceded by | Wolfgang Hellmich |
| Succeeded by | Marcus Faber |
| Deputy Leader of the Free Democratic Party | |
| In office 8 December 2013 – 26 April 2019 | |
| Leader | |
| Preceded by | Holger Zastrow |
| Succeeded by | Nicola Beer |
| Member of theBundestag forNorth Rhine-Westphalia | |
| In office 24 October 2017 – 15 July 2024 | |
| Preceded by | multi-member district |
| Succeeded by | Fabian Griewel |
| Constituency | Free Democratic Party List |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Marie-Agnes Jahn (1958-03-10)10 March 1958 (age 67) |
| Political party | Free Democratic Party (1990–) |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (Dr. phil.) |
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Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (néeJahn, born 10 March 1958) is a German politician of theFree Democratic Party (FDP) who has been serving as aMember of the European Parliament since July 2024.
Before that Strack-Zimmermann served asMember of the German Bundestag from the state ofNorth Rhine-Westphalia from 2017 to 2024.[1] In parliament, she chaired the Defence Committee.[2] From 2008 to 2014, she served as First Mayor ofDüsseldorf, thereby acting as deputy to theLord Mayor.
She was born inDüsseldorf.[3]
Strack-Zimmermann studied journalism, political science and German language and literature at theLudwig Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and graduated with a Master of Arts degree. In 1986, she received her doctorate at the LMU with a thesis entitledBilder aus Amerika: eine zeitungswissenschaftliche Studie über die USA-Berichterstattung imZweiten Deutschen Fernsehen (ZDF) (transl. Images from America: a newspaper science study on US reporting onZDF).
From 1988 to 2008 Strack-Zimmermann worked for theNuremberg youth bookpublisher Tessloff. Later she was a freelance publishing house representative.
Strack-Zimmermann was a member of theDüsseldorf city council from 2004 to 2023.[4] From 2008 until 2014, she served as deputy mayor of Düsseldorf, alongside mayorDirk Elbers.
Following the election ofChristian Lindner as chairman of the FDP in 2013, Strack-Zimmermann became one of his deputies. She served as part of the party's leadership until 2019, when she was succeeded byNicola Beer.[5]
Strack-Zimmermann became a member of the Bundestag in the2017 German federal election.[6]
During her first term from 2017 to 2021, Strack-Zimmermann served on the Defence Committee and the Committee for Construction, Housing, Urban Development and Local Authorities. During that time, she was her parliamentary group's spokesperson for defence policy and spokesperson for local government policy.[7] Since 2021, Strack-Zimmermann has been serving as chairwoman of the Defence Committee.[8]
In addition to her committee assignments, Strack-Zimmermann has been a member of the German delegation to theNATO Parliamentary Assembly since 2018, where she is part of the Defence and Security Committee, the Political Committee, the Sub-Committee on Transatlantic Defence and Security Cooperation and the Sub-Committee on Transatlantic Relations.[9]
In the negotiations to form a so-calledtraffic light coalition of theSocial Democratic Party (SPD), theGreen Party and the FDP following the2021 federal elections, Strack-Zimmermann was part of her party's delegation in the working group on foreign policy, defence, development cooperation and human rights, co-chaired byHeiko Maas,Omid Nouripour andAlexander Graf Lambsdorff.[10]
In her capacity as chair of the defense committee, Strack-Zimmermann visited Ukraine shortly after the2022 Russian invasion withMichael Roth andAnton Hofreiter, the chairs of the Bundestag's foreign relations and European affairs committees respectively.[11]
In 2023, Strack-Zimmermann was one of the initiators – alongsideMichelle Müntefering andAgnieszka Brugger – of a cross-party group promoting afeminist foreign policy.[12]
In March 2024, Strack-Zimmermann was nominated by the FDP to become theAlliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party's lead candidate for the2024 European Parliament election.[13] She was elected, and her seat in the German Bundestag was taken up byFabian Griewel.
In parliament, Strack-Zimmermann has since been chairing theSubcommittee on Security and Defence. She is also a member of theCommittee on Foreign Affairs. In addition to her committee assignments, she is part of the parliament’s delegations to theNATO Parliamentary Assembly and to the EU-Chile Joint Parliamentary Committee.[14]
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