Volker Bouffier | |
|---|---|
 Bouffier in 2016 | |
| Minister-President of Hesse | |
| In office 31 August 2010 – 31 May 2022 | |
| Deputy | Jörg-Uwe Hahn Tarek Al-Wazir |
| Preceded by | Roland Koch |
| Succeeded by | Boris Rhein |
| Leader of theChristian Democratic Union inHessen | |
| Assumed office 12 July 2010 | |
| Deputy | Eva Kühne-Hörmann |
| Preceded by | Roland Koch |
| Deputy Leader of theChristian Democratic Union | |
| In office 15 November 2010 – 22 January 2022 | |
| Leader | Angela Merkel Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer Armin Laschet |
| Preceded by | Roland Koch |
| Succeeded by | Michael Kretschmer |
| President of the Bundesrat | |
| In office 1 November 2014 – 31 October 2015 | |
| Deputy | Stephan Weil |
| Preceded by | Stephan Weil |
| Succeeded by | Stanislaw Tillich |
| Hessian Minister of the Interior and Sport | |
| In office 7 April 1999 – 31 August 2010 | |
| Minister-President | Roland Koch |
| Preceded by | Gerhard Bökel |
| Succeeded by | Boris Rhein |
| Hessian State Secretary for Justice | |
| In office 24 April 1987 – 5 April 1991 | |
| Minister-President | Walter Wallmann |
| Preceded by | Hans Joachim Suchan |
| Succeeded by | Dieter Schmidt |
| Member of theLandtag of Hesse forGiessen II | |
| Assumed office 5 April 1999 | |
| Preceded by | Karl Starzacher |
| In office 5 April 1991 – 5 April 1999 | |
| Constituency | CDU List |
| In office 1 December 1982 – 17 April 1987 | |
| Constituency | CDU List |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1951-12-18)18 December 1951 (age 73) |
| Political party | CDU |
Volker Bouffier (born 18 December 1951) is a German politician of theChristian Democratic Union (CDU) who served asMinister President of the German state ofHessen from 31 August 2010 to 31 May 2022. From 1 November 2014 until 31 October 2015 he wasPresident of the Bundesrat andex officio deputy to thePresident of Germany.
Bouffier has been serving as the chairman of the CDU in Hesse since July 2010. From 1999 to 2010, he wasState Minister of Interior and Sports in ofHessen. Bouffier is a lawyer by profession. Because of his participation in state government, he is the longest serving Member of theBundesrat, representing Hessen since 1999.
Bouffier grew up inGiessen. His father Robert Bouffier (1920–1999) was a lawyer and CDU local politician in Giessen; his grandfather Robert Ferdinand August Bouffier (1883–1971) moved fromStrasbourg to Giessen in 1906, where he later became a CDU politician.[1] His paternal family is of FrenchHuguenot ancestry.[2]
He studied law at theUniversity of Giessen and completed his studies in 1977. From 1975 to 1978 he was a research assistant inpublic law at the University of Giessen, and in 1978 he was called to the bar. He practiced law for many years in addition to his political activities and is currently an inactive partner in the law firm Bouffier & Wolf.[3]
In 2024 he took part in a musical project called "Ein offenes Herz" by electronic musician Thomas Albertsen (Globotom) reciting quotes from Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe's novel "The Sorrows of Young Werther".
Bouffier was leader of the HessianYoung Union, the youth organisation of the CDU, from 1978 to 1984.
Bouffier was first elected to theParliament of the State of Hesse in 1982. He served as State Minister of the Interior and Sports in the government of Minister-PresidentRoland Koch from 1999 to 2010.[4]
When Koch announced his withdrawal from the political scene and resigned in August 2010,[5] he nominated Bouffier as his successor to lead the center-right CDU-FDP government that was formed after the2009 state elections.
In the negotiations to form acoalition government of the Christian Democrats (CDU together with the BavarianCSU) and theFree Democratic Party (FDP) following the2009 federal elections, Bouffier was part of the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on internal and legal affairs, led byWolfgang Schäuble andSabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger.
In 2010, Bouffier was elected vice chairman of the CDU and has since been serving in the party's national leadership under successive chairwomenAngela Merkel (2012–2018) andAnnegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (since 2018). On 7 June 2011, he was among the guests invited to thestate dinner hosted by PresidentBarack Obama in honor ofChancellor Angela Merkel at theWhite House.[6]
Under Bouffier's leadership, Hesse joined forces withBavaria in early 2013 to launch a constitutional challenge to the Germany's system of tax transfers in order to stop subsidising spending in the city of Berlin, the national capital, and all the poorer states. At the time, Hesse was the third largest net contributor, with an annual transfer of almost €1.3 billion.[7]
On 8 February 2013, Bouffier agreed to the proposal of the PresidentJoachim Gauck to hold thestate elections on the same day as Germany'sfederal elections. When the official result gave no major parties and their traditional coalition partners a clear majority in the parliament, Bouffier decided to break ranks with the rest ofChancellorAngela Merkel's conservative party and seek a coalition government with the Greens rather than theSocial Democrats (SPD).[8] He thereby created only the second CDU-Green coalition to govern a German state, after theprevious government of Hamburg. On the federal level, he was part of the 15-member leadership circle chaired by Merkel,Horst Seehofer andSigmar Gabriel in the negotiations to form acoalition government.
As one of the state's representatives at theBundesrat, Germany's upper house of parliament, Bouffier is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Committee on Defence. In October 2015, while he held the rotating presidency of the Bundesrat, he hosted the three-day festivities for the 25th anniversary of thereunification of the former East and West German states.[9]
On 25 February 2022, Bouffier announced his resignation from the post of minister-president which will become effective on 31 May.[10]
Ahead of the2021 Christian Democratic Union of Germany leadership election, Bouffier publicly opposedFriedrich Merz as candidate to succeedAnnegret Kramp-Karrenbauer as the party's chair.[20] Instead, he publicly endorsedArmin Laschet's candidacy.[21]
German politicians from across the political spectrum criticizedDeutsche Bank co-CEOJürgen Fitschen in December 2012 following reports he had telephoned Bouffier to complain about a raid on the bank'sTwin Towers in Frankfurt – even though Bouffier's office was not directly responsible for overseeing the action.[22]
During the trial of Beate Zschäpe for theNSU murders, theBfV agent Andreas Temme who was at the scene of one of the murders, yet claimed not to have noticed it, was accused by the prosecution of having sympathies towardsNeo-Nazism himself, thus casting doubt on his testimony. Bouffier, then interior minister of Hesse, shielded Temme from further investigations, citing protection of undercover agents.[23][24]
Bouffier is married to his wife Ursula, a former radiology assistant.[25] In early 2019, he underwent treatment forskin cancer.[26] In 2024, he took part in a musical project called “Ein offenes Herz” by electronic musician Thomas Albertsen (Globotom), reciting quotes from Johann Wolfgang v. Goethe's novelThe Sorrows of Young Werther.[27]
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by | Minister-President of Hesse 2010–2022 | Succeeded by |
| People's State of Hesse (est. 1918) |  | |
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| Nazi period (1933–45) | ||
| Greater Hesse (1945–46) | ||
| Modern Hesse (since 1946) | ||
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