Oliver Wittke | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of theBundestag | |
| In office 2013–2019 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1966-09-24)24 September 1966 (age 59) |
| Political party |  German:Christian Democratic Union  EU:European People's Party |
| Alma mater | Ruhr University Bochum |
Oliver Wittke (born 24 September 1966) is a German politician of theChristian Democratic Union (CDU).
Born inMarl, North Rhine-Westphalia, Wittke studiedgeosciences andeconomics at theRuhr University Bochum.
From 1999 to 2004, Wittke was the direct elected mayor ofGelsenkirchen, this office was ever hold before by politicians of theSPD.
On 24 June 2005, Wittke was appointed State Minister of Construction and Transport in the cabinet of Minister-PresidentJürgen Rüttgers ofNorth Rhine-Westphalia. From 10 December 2007 he was a member of theLandtag of North Rhine-Westphalia, representing the electoral district ofHerford. On 11 February 2009, he resigned from his ministerial post due to revelations that he had been caughtspeeding (107 km/h in a residential zone) in November 2008. Pursuant to German law, he was barred from driving for a period of two months. He had committed a similarly severe traffic violation in 2000, and had been barred from driving for four weeks.
From 2010 until 2012, Wittke served as Secretary-General of the CDU of North Rhine-Westphalia, under the leadership of chairmanNorbert Röttgen.
Following the2017 state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia, Wittke was part of theArmin Laschet’s team in the negotiations between CDU andFree Democratic Party on a coalition agreement.[1]
Wittke was first elected to the German Bundestag in the2013 federal elections. He served on the Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure and its Sub-Committee on Municipal Politics. On the Committee on Transport and Digital Infrastructure, he was his parliamentary group'srapporteur on road haulage services, the transport of hazardous goods, railway and automobile technologies, and themotorway toll.
In addition to his committee assignments, Wittke was a member of the German-Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Group.
In the negotiations to form acoalition government under the leadership ofChancellorAngela Merkel following the2017 federal elections, Wittke was part of the working group on transport and infrastructure, led byMichael Kretschmer,Alexander Dobrindt andSören Bartol. With the formation of thefourthGrand Coalition, it was announced that Wittke would move to the position of Parliamentary State Secretary at theFederal Ministry of Economic Affairs and Energy under MinisterPeter Altmaier.[2] In this capacity, he also served as the ministry's Special Coordinator for theExtractive Industries Transparency Initiative (EITI).[3]
Together withRoland Heintze,Daniel Günther,Andreas Jung,David McAllister,Nadine Schön andAntje Tillmann, Wittke co-chaired the CDU’s 2018 national convention inHamburg.[4]
In October 2019, Wittke submitted his resignation from government and instead became the managing director of the German Property Federation (ZIA).[5]
In June 2017, Wittke voted against his parliamentary group’s majority and in favor of Germany’s introduction ofsame-sex marriage.[8][9]
Ahead of the Christian Democrats’leadership election in 2018, Wittke publicly endorsedAnnegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Angela Merkel as the party's chair.[10] He later endorsedNorbert Röttgen as Kramp-Karrenbauer's successor at the party's2021 leadership election.[11]
