Sigmar Gabriel | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Gabriel in 2018 | |
| Vice Chancellor of Germany | |
| In office 17 December 2013 – 14 March 2018 | |
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
| Preceded by | Philipp Rösler |
| Succeeded by | Olaf Scholz |
| Leader of the Social Democratic Party | |
| In office 13 November 2009 – 19 March 2017 | |
| Deputy | Olaf Scholz Hannelore Kraft Ralf Stegner Aydan Özoğuz Manuela Schwesig Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel |
| Preceded by | Franz Müntefering |
| Succeeded by | Martin Schulz |
| Minister of Foreign Affairs | |
| In office 27 January 2017 – 14 March 2018 | |
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
| Preceded by | Frank-Walter Steinmeier |
| Succeeded by | Heiko Maas |
| Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy | |
| In office 17 December 2013 – 27 January 2017 | |
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
| Preceded by | Philipp Rösler (Economics and Technology) |
| Succeeded by | Brigitte Zypries |
| Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety | |
| In office 22 November 2005 – 27 October 2009 | |
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
| Preceded by | Jürgen Trittin |
| Succeeded by | Norbert Röttgen |
| Minister-President of Lower Saxony | |
| In office 15 December 1999 – 4 March 2003 | |
| Deputy | Heidrun Merk Renate Jürgens-Pieper |
| Preceded by | Gerhard Glogowski |
| Succeeded by | Christian Wulff |
| Leader of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany in theLandtag of Lower Saxony | |
| In office 4 March 2003 – 9 November 2005 | |
| Preceded by | Axel Plaue |
| Succeeded by | Wolfgang Jüttner |
| In office 30 March 1998 – 15 December 1999 | |
| Preceded by | Heinrich Aller |
| Succeeded by | Axel Plaue |
| Member of theBundestag forSalzgitter – Wolfenbüttel | |
| In office 18 October 2005 – 3 November 2019[1] | |
| Preceded by | Wilhelm Schmidt |
| Succeeded by | Markus Paschke |
| Member of theLandtag of Lower Saxony forGoslar | |
| In office 21 June 1990 – 9 November 2004 | |
| Preceded by | Jürgen Sikora |
| Succeeded by | Petra Emmerich-Kopatsch |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel (1959-09-12)12 September 1959 (age 65) Goslar,Lower Saxony,West Germany |
| Political party | Social Democratic Party |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 3 |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen |
| Signature |  |
| Military service | |
| Allegiance |  Germany |
| Branch/service |  Bundeswehr |
| Years of service | 1979–1981 |
| Unit |  Air Force (Luftwaffe) |
Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel (born 12 September 1959) is a German politician who was theFederal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2018 and thevice-chancellor of Germany from 2013 to 2018. He wasLeader of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 2009 to 2017,[2] which made him the party's longest-serving leader sinceWilly Brandt.[2] He was theFederal Minister of the Environment from 2005 to 2009 and theFederal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy from 2013 to 2017. From 1999 to 2003 Gabriel wasMinister-President of Lower Saxony.
He representedSalzgitter – Wolfenbüttel in theBundestag.
Gabriel is a member of theSeeheimer Kreis, an official internal grouping of the party withliberal economic positions.
Gabriel was born inGoslar,West Germany, son of Walter Gabriel (1921–2012), a municipal civil servant, and Antonie Gabriel (1922–2014), a nurse. Gabriel's parents divorced in 1962, and for the next six years he lived with his father and grandmother Lina Gabriel, while his sister lived with their mother. After a lengthy custody battle his mother was awarded custody for both children in 1969.
Gabriel's father was aLutheran originally fromHirschberg im Riesengebirge inSilesia (nowPoland), while his mother was aCatholic originally fromHeilsberg in theErmland (Warmia) region ofEast Prussia who had most recently lived inKönigsberg; both parents came as refugees to West Germany during theflight and expulsion of Germans at the end of the Second World War. Sigmar Gabriel has described his family history as a "wild story of flight and expulsion" and noted that his parents dealt with the trauma of expulsion in different ways. According to Gabriel, his father was physically and emotionally abusive to him[3] and was an enthusiastic supporter of thenational socialist ideology "until his dying breath;"[4] However, Walter Gabriel never saw active service during the war due to suffering frompolio.[5] His mother was involved in relief and solidarity work for Poland during the period ofmartial law in Poland.[6]
Sigmar Gabriel attended school in Goslar, and served as a soldier in theGerman Air Force from 1979 to 1981.[7] He studiedpolitics,sociology andGerman at theUniversity of Göttingen from 1982 and passed the first state examination as a grammar school teacher in 1987 and the second state examination in 1989.[8]
Gabriel joined the SPD in 1977 and soon held a number of positions in local politics. In 1990, he was first elected to theState Parliament ofLower Saxony, where he led the SPD parliamentary group from 1998 until 1999.[9]
On 15 December 1999, after the resignation ofGerhard Glogowski, who had succeededGerhard Schröder in office, Gabriel becameMinister-President of Lower Saxony. He had previously won an internal party vote againstWolfgang Jüttner andThomas Oppermann.[10] He served until 4 March 2003. During these years, he was widely presented as a protégé of Schröder, and even as a possible successor as chancellor.[11]
After being voted out of office in 2003, Gabriel became the SPD's "Representative for Pop Culture and Pop Discourse" from 2003 to 2005, for which he was bestowed the nicknameSiggi Pop.[12]
He was elected inSalzgitter – Wolfenbüttel in the2005 federal election.
From 2005 to 2009 Gabriel was theFederal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in thefirst cabinet ofAngela Merkel (CDU).
During his time in office, Gabriel promoted theInternational Renewable Energy Agency. He also led the German delegation to the2006 United Nations Climate Change Conference inNairobi.[13] In 2007, when Germany held thepresidency of the Council of the European Union, he led the negotiations between European Union environment ministers on an ambitious effort to cutgreenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels.[14] That same year, he accompanied Merkel on a two-day visit toGreenland to see theIlulissat Icefjord, aUNESCO world heritage site, and theSermeq Kujalleq glacier in order to get a firsthand look at the effects of global warming.[15]
Following the SPD's defeat in thefederal election of 2009,Franz Müntefering resigned from the position of party chairman of the Social Democratic Party. Gabriel was nominated as his successor and was elected on 13 November 2009.[16] He was re-elected as party chairman for a further two years at the SPD party conference in Berlin on 5 December 2011, receiving 91.6 percent of the vote.[17]
During his early years as chairman, Gabriel pushed through internal party reforms. He abolished the party steering committee in favor of an expanded executive committee and led the regular party conventions, the most important meetings for the party.[18] He also played a critical role in founding theProgressive Alliance in 2013 by canceling the SPD payment of its £100,000 yearly membership fee to theSocialist International in January 2012. Gabriel had been critical of the Socialist International's admittance and continuing inclusion of undemocratic "despotic" political movements into the organization.[19][20]
For the2013 federal election, Gabriel was considered a possible candidate to challenge incumbent ChancellorAngela Merkel but deemed too “unpopular and undisciplined” at the time.[21] As a consequence, he and the other members of the party's leadership agreed to nominatePeer Steinbrück afterFrank-Walter Steinmeier, the party's parliamentary leader, withdrew from the contest.[22]
During the election campaign, Gabriel became the first SPD leader to address a party convention ofAlliance '90/The Greens; in his speech, he called for ared–green alliance to defeat Merkel in the elections.[23]
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In 2013, Gabriel turned the Social Democrats’ third successive defeat toAngela Merkel in thefederal election into a share of government, after successfully navigating the three-month process of coalition negotiations and a ballot of about 475,000 party members, who endorsed the accord.[24] At the time, he was widely considered to have negotiated skillfully, particularly considering the relative weakness of his party, which had received just over 25 percent of the vote in the elections, against more than 41 percent for Merkel's conservative bloc.[25]
At an SPD convention shortly after the elections, however, Gabriel and the other members of the party's leadership were punished by delegates who re-elected them to their posts with reduced majorities; he received 83.6 percent of members’ ballots after 91.6 percent at the previous vote in 2011.[26]
Gabriel, who serves as vice-chancellor in thethird Merkel cabinet, took on responsibility forGermany's energy overhaul as part of a newly configured Economy Ministry.[24] Since late 2016, he has been a member of the German government's cabinet committee onBrexit at which ministers discuss organizational and structural issues related to theUnited Kingdom's departure from theEuropean Union.[27]
As Minister of the Economy in 2014, Gabriel tried to choke the exports of the German defence industry.[28]
Speculation about Gabriel's future as leader of the SPD has been brewing since he registered just 74 percent[29] in a party delegates' vote of confidence in December 2015 – the lowest for an SPD leader in 20 years.[30] On 24 January 2017 Gabriel announced that we will not run as candidate for chancellor in 2017; instead, he proposed thatMartin Schulz become candidate and replace him as party chairman.[31]
Gabriel also announced that he would succeedFrank-Walter Steinmeier asMinister for Foreign Affairs. He took office on 27 January 2017, the previous Parliamentary State SecretaryBrigitte Zypries followed Gabriel as Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy.[32]
At theMunich Security Conference in February 2017 Gabriel called on NATO members, rather than focus mainly on traditional defense, to focus more on the "root causes of conflict" such as "poverty and climate".[33]
Gabriel proposed in March 2017 that expenses such as development aid should be considered as part of the NATO 2% GDP defense expenditure guideline.[34][35][36] NATO Secretary-GeneralJens Stoltenberg later responded that development aid cannot be part of defence spending.[37]
As Foreign Minister Gabriel has said Germany's "arms will remain outstretched" to the US to continue the trans-Atlantic alliance between the two countries. However he has said that Germany will step into global markets the US abandons and take on a bigger role on the international stage if Donald Trump continues his protectionist and isolationist policies.[38]
Since leaving public office, Gabriel has taken on various paid and unpaid positions.
In 2018, Gabriel was among six of 11 candidates nominated bySiemens to join the board of directors of Siemens Alstom, a planned merger of two railway companies;[39] he ended up not taking the office when the merger was prohibited by theEuropean Commission amid competition concerns. Also in 2018, the German government's ethics committee rejected his request to join the supervisory board ofKulczyk Investments, citing potentialconflict of interest.[40][41] In 2019, he rejected an offer to become the head of theGerman Association of the Automotive Industry (VDA) after media reports that he was in line for the post caused a public outcry and prompted accusations of nepotism.[42]
In June 2019 he said Donald Trump is right to criticize China and to negotiate with North Korea.[43]
Gabriel has been chairman of theAtlantic Bridge[44] and member of theTrilateral Commission[45] as well as theEuropean Council on Foreign Relations.[46] He has also been a member of the Board of Trustees of theInternational Crisis Group since May 2018[47] and since March 2019 the advisory board ofDeloitte.[48] In the summer semester of 2018, he was a lecturer at theRheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn[49] and for three weeks in the fall of 2018 a visiting lecturer atHarvard University.[50] Since November 2019, he has been working atEurasia Group as a political consultant.[51]
On 24 January 2020,Deutsche Bank nominated him for a seat on the supervisory board of its financial institution.[52][53][54] This announcement caused partly critical reactions. For example,Abgeordnetenwatch demanded a grace period of three years for such a change, arguing that it would harm the understanding of democracy if Gabriel less than two years after his departure as vice chancellor "now silvering his address book to Deutsche Bank, which he could fill so bulging only as a representative of the people". On 20 May 2020, Gabriel was elected as a member of the Integrity Committee of Deutsche Bank to the supervisory board of the same company.
By his own account, Gabriel worked as a consultant forTönnies Holding from March to the end of May 2020. According to Gabriel, he was to find out what trade restrictions were planned for meat products when exporting to Asia in the wake ofAfrican swine fever and how export permits could still be obtained.
Since 2020, theGerman-Israeli Future Forum Foundation has run theSylke Tempel Fellowship program under Gabriel's auspices.[55] From 2021 to 2022, he was a member of theTrilateral Commission’s Task Force on Global Capitalism in Transition, chaired byCarl Bildt,Kelly Grier andTakeshi Niinami.[56]
Gabriel has been staunchly against German soldiers remaining inAfghanistan. In 2010, he called for an independent assessment that would determine whether the U.S.counter-insurgency strategy would succeed.[76] However, he voted in favor of extending German participation in theNATO-led security missionISAF in 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012.
On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the founding of the State of Israel, Gabriel participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the governments of Germany and Israel in Jerusalem in March 2008.[77] In 2012, after having visitedHebron and thePalestinian territories, he said the Palestinians in those areas were systematically discriminated against and called Israel an "Apartheid Regime".[78]
While German members of parliament call out Iran's human rights violations andNazanin Boniadi, advocate for theCenter for Human Rights in Iran, described "systemic gender apartheid" where women advocating equal rights are regularly imprisoned, homosexuality is illegal and can carry the death penalty,[79] Gabriel became the first top level German government visitor toIran in 13 years[80] as well as the first senior figure from any large western country's government to visit the country since it struck an agreement on its nuclear program, theJoint Comprehensive Plan of Action, only days earlier.[81] Travelling with a delegation of German industry representatives keen to move back into the Iranian market, he met withPresidentHassan Rouhani, Foreign Minister MohammadJavad Zarif andOil MinisterBijan Namdar Zangeneh.[80]
In one of the strongest comments by Germany to push for a federal solution forUkraine, Gabriel told German weeklyWelt am Sonntag in August 2014 that a federal structure was the only option to resolvepro-Russian unrest in the country. He added that Germany's priority was to prevent direct conflict between Russia and its southern neighbour.[82] Commenting on theinternational sanctions regime against Russia, Gabriel stated in early 2015 that “we want to help resolve the conflict in Ukraine but don’t want to force Russia to its knees.”[83] He later suggested that Europe consider easing sanctions in exchange for cooperation inSyria.[84] Ukrainian-American historianAlexander J. Motyl has accused Gabriel of "appeasement" and "a complete betrayal of everything democratic socialists claim to stand for."[85]
In September 2015, amid theEuropean migrant crisis, Gabriel visited theZaatari refugee camp inJordan to learn more about the plight ofSyrians fleeing the violence in the ongoingSyrian civil war that erupted in 2011.[86] Gabriel publicly urgedSaudi Arabia to stop supportingreligious radicals, amid growing concern among about the country's funding ofWahhabi mosques in Germany which are accused of breeding dangerousIslamists.[87]
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In January 2016, Gabriel participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the governments of Germany andTurkey in Berlin.[88] Later that year, he called anyaccession of Turkey to the European Union in the near term an "illusion."[89]
After theG7 summit in 2017, Gabriel stated that the United States, withDonald Trump as president, has "weakened" the West and that the balance of power has now shifted. The remark comes days after Merkel stated, in an apparent policy shift, that "Europeans must really take our fate into our own hands".[90]
In June 2017, Gabriel criticized the draft of new U.S. sanctions againstRussia that target EU–Russia energy projects, includingNord Stream 2 gas pipeline. In a joint statement Gabriel and Austria's ChancellorChristian Kern said that "Europe's energy supply is a matter for Europe, and not for the United States of America."[91] They also said: "To threaten companies from Germany, Austria and other European states with penalties on the U.S. market if they participate in natural gas projects such as Nord Stream 2 with Russia or finance them introduces a completely new and very negative quality into European-American relations."[92]
Gabriel is a supporter of theCampaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations, and the creation of a more accountable international political system. He argued the U.N. needed to be made "more effective, transparent, and democratic through a reform of its structures and decision-making procedures".[93]
In February 2018, Gabriel accusedRussia andChina of trying to "undermine" the liberal Western world order. He said that "Nobody should attempt to divide the European Union: not Russia, not China and also not the United States."[94] In September 2018, Gabriel said that "Ukrainians, Belarusians and Russians experienced unfathomable suffering inWorld War II. We have a responsibility there."[95]
In March 2018, after his departure as German foreign minister, Gabriel published an opinion piece about the future of the relations betweenTurkey (underAKP rule) and the West, where he advocated for an inclusive stance towards Turkey and criticized the policy of the United States in that regard.[96] In February 2020, he joined around fifty former European prime ministers and foreign ministers in signing an open letter published by British newspaperThe Guardian to condemnU.S. PresidentDonald Trump’sMiddle East peace plan, saying it would create anapartheid-like situation in occupied Palestinian territory.[97][98]
On the occasion of theG20 summit in 2011, Gabriel joinedEd Miliband, the leader of the UK'sLabour Party, andHåkan Juholt, the chairman of theSwedish Social Democratic Party, in suggesting a “new deal” for economic growth. They also said G20 leaders should commit to the introduction of afinancial transaction tax for all major financial centers and an agreement to separate consumer andinvestment banking.[99]
In a letter to theEuropean Commissioner for Trade,Karel De Gucht, Gabriel stated in March 2014 that “special investment-protection provisions are not required in an agreement between the E.U. and the U.S” on aTransatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP).[100] Instead, he later called for a public trade and investment court to replace the current system of private arbitration, and to enable appeals against arbitration rulings.[101] Meanwhile, he has continuously warned against overblowing expectations for an economic boost from TTIP but maintained that the pact was needed to set high common standards for consumers.[102] By August 2016, Gabriel said talks on TTIP had "de facto" failed.[103]
In September 2014, Gabriel rejected the inclusion of aninvestor-state dispute settlement clause in theComprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) betweenCanada and theEuropean Union, prompting a renegotiation that delayed the entry into force of the agreement.[104] Following the renegotiations, he championed CETA to demonstrate the center-left party's business credentials.[103]
In a 2014 meeting with French economistThomas Piketty, whose best-selling workCapital in the Twenty-First Century calls for awealth tax, Gabriel rejected such aprogressive levy on capital as “crazy” for business. He also argued that a wealth tax would generate no more than 8 billion euros ($9.9 billion) a year.[105]
Together with his French counterpartEmmanuel Macron, Gabriel presented a joint proposal in 2015 to set up a commoneurozone budget.[106]
Following theFukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in 2011, Gabriel harshly criticized theInternational Atomic Energy Agency, saying it had promoted “the construction of nuclear plants in all parts of the world, even in war and crisis regions. That needs to stop.”[107]
In 2015, Gabriel opposed aEuropean Commission proposal for regional power-capacity markets, according to which utilities are paid for providing backup electricity at times when power generated byrenewable sources, such as the sun and wind, cannot supply the grid. A free market backstopped by an emergency reserve will be cheaper and work just as well as capacity markets, Gabriel toldHandelsblatt.[108] He later warned against a hasty exit from coal-fired power generation, concerned that such a move could pile more pressure on producers still wrestling with the planned shutdown of nuclear plants by 2022.[109]
Early in his tenure as Federal Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy, Gabriel vowed a much more cautious approach to licensing arms exports, unnerving the sizeable defense industry and signaling a change in policy from theprevious coalition government under which sales rose.[110] In August 2014, he withdrew permission forRheinmetall to build a military training center east of Moscow.[111]
Gabriel was bound by pledges to his SPD to reduce arms sales to states that abuse human rights and the rule of law or where such sales may contribute to political instability. He stated that controls over the final destination of small arms sold to such nations are still insufficient.[112] However, he also indicated that the government would not universally block deals with countries outside of Germany's traditional alliances. Deals with such countries could be approved because of "special foreign-policy or security interests."[113] In late 2015, his ministry approved a merger of German tank makerKrauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW) with the French armoured vehicle makerNexter.[114] Gabriel has been criticized by opposition leaders and the press for failing to prevent several deals that resulted in a significant rise in German arms exports during his tenure,[115][116][117] although a paradigm shift (lifting of the prohibition against arms exports in zones of war and crisis) already occurred before that.[118][119]
In May 2014, Gabriel and France's economy and digital ministerArnaud Montebourg sent theEuropean Commissioner for Competition,Joaquín Almunia, a letter criticizing the settlement of a three-year antitrust probe intoGoogle;[120] Gabriel later “warmly welcomed” the launch of EU antitrust charges against Google in April 2015.[121]
In September 2014, Gabriel calledGoogle,Amazon.com andApple Inc. “anti-social” for skirting appropriate taxation.[122] In early 2015, Gabriel and his French counterpartEmmanuel Macron wrote in a joint letter toVice-President of the European CommissionAndrus Ansip that the growing power of some online giants “warrants a policy consultation with the aim of establishing an appropriate general regulatory framework for ‘essential digital platforms.’”[123]
In 2016, during a series of Chinese bids for German engineering firms, Gabriel publicly called for a European-wide safeguard clause which could stop foreign takeovers of firms whose technology is deemed strategic for the future economic success of the region.[124]
In April 2014, human rights lawyerMo Shaoping was blocked from meeting Gabriel during his visit to China, despite the minister saying ahead of the meeting that he wanted to meet critical voices.[125]
During a 2015 visit toKing Salman of Saudi Arabia, Gabriel launched an unusual public effort to persuade Saudi authorities to free imprisoned writerRaif Badawi and grant him clemency, amplifying Germany’s political voice in a region in which its influence had largely been limited to economic issues in years past.[126] He had been urged by MPs and human rights organizations to take up Badawi's case before his trip.[127] His outspoken criticism of Saudi justice was unusual for Western leaders visiting the country, a close ally for the West in fighting terrorism andIslamic State militants, particularly given Germany’s status asSaudi Arabia’s third-largest source of imports.[126] While theU.S. State Department had previously also criticized the Badawi sentence, U.S. Secretary of StateJohn Kerry did not talk about the case publicly when he visited Riyadh only days before.[126]
During a subsequent trip to Qatar, Gabriel called on theemir of Qatar,Sheikh Tamim Bin Hamad Al Thani and other senior officials to do better in protecting foreign household workers who face abuse from their employers.[128]
In 2010, Gabriel called the speeches ofThilo Sarrazin, his party colleague who wrote critically about immigration by accusing Muslims of refusing to integrate and of “dumbing down” German society,[129] "verbal violence". He stated that although Sarrazin described many things that were accurate, his conclusions did not fit into the egalitarian “ideals” of Social Democracy anymore.[129]
In 2016, a German court nullified Gabriel's controversial decision to grant a special permission for the country's biggest supermarket chainEdeka to buy grocery store chain Kaiser's, owned byTengelmann Group. The judges raised questions about the minister's "bias and a lack of neutrality" in the case, saying he had held secret discussion during the decision making process.[29][130]
Gabriel has a daughter, Saskia, born in 1989, with his former girlfriend, who is of Jewish origin and whose grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz.[131][132] Gabriel was subsequently married to his former high school student Munise Demirel, who is of Turkish origin, from 1989 to 1998, and they had no children.[133] In 2012 he married dentist Anke Stadler, with whom he has been in a relationship since 2008; their daughter Marie was born in 2012.[134] His daughter Thea was born on 4 March 2017.[135]
In December 2016, Gabriel underwentbariatric surgery inOffenbach to shrink his stomach and help manage hisdiabetes.[2]
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Media related toSigmar Gabriel at Wikimedia Commons
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | Minister President of Lower Saxony 1999–2003 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety 2005–2009 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy 2013–2017 | Succeeded by |
| Vice-Chancellor of Germany 2013–2018 | Succeeded by | |
| Preceded by | Minister for Foreign Affairs 2017–2018 | Succeeded by |
| Party political offices | ||
| Preceded by | Leader of the Social Democratic Party 2009–2017 | Succeeded by |
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| People | |
| Other | |
