Roland Koch | |
|---|---|
 Koch in 2008 | |
| Minister-President of Hesse | |
| In office 7 April 1999 – 31 August 2010 | |
| Deputy | Ruth Wagner Karin Wolff Volker Bouffier Jörg-Uwe Hahn |
| Preceded by | Hans Eichel |
| Succeeded by | Volker Bouffier |
| President of the Bundesrat | |
| In office 30 April 1999 – 31 October 1999 | |
| Preceded by | Hans Eichel |
| Succeeded by | Kurt Biedenkopf |
| Leader of theChristian Democratic Union inHesse | |
| In office 25 January 1998 – 12 June 2010 | |
| General Secretary | Siegbert Seitz Herbert Müller Otti Geschka Michael Boddenberg Peter Beuth |
| Preceded by | Manfred Kanther |
| Succeeded by | Volker Bouffier |
| Leader of theChristian Democratic Union in theLandtag of Hesse | |
| In office 13 July 1993 – 5 April 1999 | |
| Preceded by | Manfred Kanther |
| Succeeded by | Norbert Kartmann |
| In office 27 November 1990 – 5 April 1991 | |
| Preceded by | Hartmut Nassauer |
| Succeeded by | Manfred Kanther |
| Member of theLandtag of Hesse for Main-Taunus I | |
| In office 5 April 1987 – 1 September 2010 | |
| Preceded by | Karl-Heinz Koch |
| Succeeded by | Christian Heinz |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1958-03-24)24 March 1958 (age 67) |
| Political party | CDU |
| Alma mater | Goethe University Frankfurt |
| Occupation | Jurist |
| Website | roland-koch |
Roland Koch (born 24 March 1958) is a Germanjurist and former conservative politician of theChristian Democratic Union (CDU). He was the 7thMinister President ofHesse from 7 April 1999, immediately becoming the 53rdPresident of theBundesrat, completing the term begun by his predecessor as Minister President,Hans Eichel, until his resignation on 31 August 2010. During his time in office, Koch was widely regarded as one ofChancellorAngela Merkel's main rivals within the CDU.[1][2]
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Koch was born inFrankfurt am Main. He studied law and graduated in 1985. In 1979, Koch became the youngest person to hold the office of chairman of theCDU inMain-Taunus district.
From 1983 until 1987, Koch served as vice-chair of the federal youth organization of the CDU.
In the1987 state elections, Koch was elected to theState Parliament of Hesse. From 1989 until 1997 he was also a member of theMain-Taunus district council and parliamentary leader of the local CDU group. In 1991 he became vice-chair of the CDU parliamentary group, and in 1993 its chair. Until then Koch had been a city council member in his hometown ofEschborn.
From 1998 onward, Koch was chair of the CDU in Hesse.[citation needed]
In the state elections in 1999, the CDU began collecting signatures to document the resistance in the population to plans of the federal government to makedual citizenship easier for foreigners to obtain. Because some people viewed this as "collecting signatures against foreigners", this campaign was portrayed as "xenophobic".[3] Koch won the election and displaced the incumbent,Hans Eichel. Under his leadership, the CDU achieved the best result for the party there in 60 years.[4]
In 2003, Koch andPeer Steinbrück, the Social Democrat premier of North Rhine Westphalia, together drew up a plan to reducetax breaks and subsidies, including those on coal by 12 percent over several years. The subsidies were a particularly sensitive issue in North Rhine-Westphalia, where most ofthe coal mines are located.[5]
Ahead of the2004 German presidential election, Koch publicly endorsedWolfgang Schäuble as the Christian Democrats’s candidate to succeed incumbentPresident Johannes Rau.[6]
Under the leadership of party chairwomanAngela Merkel, Koch was elected vice-chairman of theCDU in November 2006, alongsideJürgen Rüttgers,Annette Schavan andChristian Wulff.[7] By 2007, he and Rüttgers, his counterpart from the state ofNorth Rhine-Westphalia, agreed on approving a merger of their respective state-owned banks, WestLB andLandesbank Hessen-Thüringen (Helaba).[8] WestLB was eventually broken up in 2012 after years of losses and controversy.
Prior to theHesse state election of 2008 Koch was once again accused of using xenophobic tactics by pledging to get tough on youth crime, which is concentrated among immigrant and minority groups. In the course of the election he lost his party's majority in the Hessian Parliament, but remained acting Minister President as hisSPD challengerAndrea Ypsilanti was unable to form a government.Since none of the parties was able to build a majority coalition, they decided to give the voters another chance to produce a workable result.
In the January 2009election theFDP made significant gains which allowed Koch to form a conservative-liberal coalition government, reelecting him as the Minister President of the State of Hesse. Ahead of the2009 federal elections, he was tipped as a potential finance or economics minister in a coalition government ofCDU/CSU and FDP.[9][10]
In his capacity as Minister-President, Koch held various other positions, including the following:
On 25 May 2010 Koch announced his withdrawal from the active politics. At the time, he said he had informed Merkel of his plan to leave politics more than a year before.[13] He resigned as Minister-President of Hesse on 31 August 2010.[14] He hinted that he was departing politics in order to become active in the business world.[15]
Koch was seen as a rhetorically gifted politician; critics have accused him ofpopulism.[16]A sometimes polarizing figure on his party's right, Koch proved to be one of the main defenders of business and financial interests within his party.[17] In 2010, Koch and Merkel clashed over budget cuts, as Koch proposed cutbacks in education and research that Merkel opposed. He also suggested that a law passed to provide a guaranteed child-care facilities for children under 3 would have to be reconsidered.[18] In his final years as Minister-President, he largely worked smoothly with Merkel.[19] Ahead of the Christian Democrats’leadership election in 2018, Koch publicly endorsedFriedrich Merz to succeed Angela Merkel as the party's chair.[20]
On foreign policy, Koch forged a friendship with theDalai Lama and supported the self-determination ofTibet.[21]
On 29 October 2010, Koch was announced as designatedchief executive officer ofBilfinger Berger, Germany's second-largest builder.[22] In the following years, he orchestrated a reshuffle at the company away from civil engineering and construction in favor of higher-margin industrial services.[23] During his tenure, Bilfinger Berger also agreed with theUnited States Department of Justice in 2013 to pay $32 million to resolve U.S. criminal charges that it bribed Nigerian officials to obtain contracts on a gas project in the African nation.[24] In August 2014, he stepped down from the position on mutually agreed terms after he took responsibility for two profit warnings.[25]
In 2015, Koch opened a law firm in Frankfurt.[26] Since 2017, he has also been a Professor of Management Practice in Regulated Environments at theFrankfurt School of Finance & Management.[27]
Koch was a CDU delegate to theFederal Convention for the purpose of electing thePresident of Germany in 2017[28] in2022.[29]
In 2025, the representatives of public sector employers –Nancy Faeser and Karin Welge – appointed Koch as their arbitrator in a dispute with employees; appointed by theGerman Civil Service Federation andUnited Services Trade Union (ver.di), Hans-Henning Lühr served as his counterpart in the talks.[30]
In February 2018,Bilfinger announced it would sue Koch and other former executives of the company for at least 100 million euros ($123 million) in damages for alleged breaches of duty in compliance and mergers.[42]
His father Karl-Heinz Koch was a politician in Hessen. Koch and his wife Anke have two sons. He is aRoman Catholic.[43]
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Hans Eichel (SPD) | Minister-President of Hesse 1999–2010 | Succeeded by Volker Bouffier (CDU) |
| People's State of Hesse (est. 1918) |  | |
|---|---|---|
| Nazi period (1933–45) | ||
| Greater Hesse (1945–46) | ||
| Modern Hesse (since 1946) | ||
