Andrea Maria Nahles (born 20 June 1970) is a former German politician who has been the director of the Federal Employment Agency (BA) since 2022. Nahles is best known for having served as leader of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties For ...

(SPD) from April 2018 until June 2019 and the leader of the SPD in the Bundestag from September 2017 until June 2019. She served as a Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs from 2013 to 2017 and SPD Youth leader. From 2020 to 2022, she was the president of the Federal Posts and Telecommunications Agency.Martin Greive (26 June 2020)
Nahles zur neuen Präsidentin der Bundesanstalt für Post und Telekommunikation gewählt
''

Handelsblatt The ''Handelsblatt'' (literally "commerce paper" in English) is a German-language business newspaper published in Düsseldorf by Handelsblatt Media Group, formerly known as Verlagsgruppe Handelsblatt. History and profile ''Handelsblatt'' was ...

''. Nahles is known within the party for criticising

Gerhard Schröder Gerhard Fritz Kurt "Gerd" Schröder (; born 7 April 1944) is a German lobbyist and former politician, who served as the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germa ...

's Agenda 2010. In June 2019, in the aftermath of the SPD's result in the 2019 European elections, she announced her resignation as leader of the SPD and as parliamentary leader of the SPD. For the transition period until a new SPD-leader was elected, Manuela Schwesig, Malu Dreyer and Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel acted as her successors. Nahles left the Bundestag on 31 October 2019.

Early life and education

Born in 1970 in

Mendig Mendig () is a small town in the district Mayen-Koblenz, in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It is situated approximately 6 km north-east of Mayen, and 25 km west of Koblenz. Mendig is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective ...

Rhineland-Palatinate Rhineland-Palatinate ( , ; german: link=no, Rheinland-Pfalz ; lb, Rheinland-Pfalz ; pfl, Rhoilond-Palz) is a western state of Germany. It covers and has about 4.05 million residents. It is the ninth largest and sixth most populous of the ...

, to a bricklayer and an office clerk, Nahles grew up in the rural Eifel region in West Germany.Tobias Buck (28 February 2018)
New SPD leader courts German voters with pleas and provocation
''

Financial Times The ''Financial Times'' (''FT'') is a British daily newspaper printed in broadsheet and published digitally that focuses on business and economic current affairs. Based in London, England, the paper is owned by a Japanese holding company, Nik ...

''. She finished high school (

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen ye ...

) through a continuing education program in 1989. She obtained an MA after studying politics, philosophy and

German studies German studies is the field of humanities that researches, documents and disseminates German language and literature in both its historic and present forms. Academic departments of German studies often include classes on German culture, Germa ...

at the

University of Bonn The Rhenish Friedrich Wilhelm University of Bonn (german: Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn) is a public research university located in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. It was founded in its present form as the ( en, Rhine ...

for 20 semesters (10 years), during which time she was an assistant to a member of parliament. In 2004, Nahles began working towards a doctorate in Germanistics. She abandoned her dissertation in 2005 when she returned to the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Comm ...

. The title of her planned dissertation was "

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...

's influence on the development of the historical novel in Germany".

Political career

Party career

In 1988, Nahles joined the SPD at the age of 18. Shortly after, she was the youth representative for the constituency of Mayen-Koblenz. From 1993 to 1995 she was the youth representative for Rhineland-Palatinate. In 1995 she became the national youth representative, following Thomas Westphal, a post she held until 1999. Since 1997 she has been a member of the SPD executive. In 2000, Nahles was one of the founders of the " Forum Demokratische Linke 21" (Forum of the Democratic Left 21). As leader of the SPD's left wing and former head of party's youth section, she opposed many of Chancellor

's economic reforms, namely the Agenda 2010. She and others repeatedly criticized the leadership style of the party's chairman Franz Müntefering, saying the party was never consulted over Schröder's decision in May 2005 to call early elections or the decision to join a grand coalition under Merkel that would include the major parties. As party leaders sought to reconcile the bickering factions in the post-Schröder era, Nahles gained in leverage.Patrick Donahue (15 December 2013)
Merkel's Third-Term Cabinet: Social Democratic Party Ministers
'' Bloomberg''. On 31 October 2005, she was voted the SPD's general secretary, defeating Kajo Wasserhövel, the favoured man from the conservative side of the party. Wasserhövel's defeat prompted Franz Müntefering to declare that he no longer felt he had the confidence of the party and would step down. As a result, Nahles refused to accept the position of general secretary. Between 2005 and 2009, Nahles served on the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs. From 2008, she was also a member of the SPD parliamentary group's leadership under chairman Peter Struck. Ahead of the 2009 elections, German foreign minister

Frank-Walter Steinmeier Frank-Walter Steinmeier (; born 5 January 1956) is a German politician serving as President of Germany since 19 March 2017. He was previously Federal Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017, as well as Vice Chan ...

included her in his shadow cabinet of 10 women and eight men for the Social Democrats' campaign to unseat incumbent

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Opp ...

as chancellor. During the campaign, Nahles served as shadow minister for education and integration policies, being a counterweight to incumbent Annette Schavan.

General Secretary of the SPD, 2009–2013

Nahles was elected as the SPD's secretary general in November 2009 at the party congress held in

Dresden Dresden (, ; Upper Saxon: ''Dräsdn''; wen, label= Upper Sorbian, Drježdźany) is the capital city of the German state of Saxony and its second most populous city, after Leipzig. It is the 12th most populous city of Germany, the fourth ...

. She succeeded Hubertus Heil in the position, and worked together with new-elected party leader Sigmar Gabriel. Her appointment was widely seen as a signal the SPD would shift to the left. In her capacity as secretary general, Nahles oversaw the SPD's electoral campaign in 2013. After the SPD's defeat in the federal elections, she was in charge of organizing a referendum among her party's 472,000 members before signing any coalition treaty with re-elected Chancellor

and her conservative bloc. In the negotiations to form a

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

following the elections, Nahles was part of the 15-member leadership circle chaired by Merkel, Gabriel and Horst Seehofer. At a three-day party convention held in Leipzig in November 2013, delegates re-elected Nahles to her post with reduced majority. She received 67.2 percent of members' ballots.

Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs, 2013–2017

As Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in Chancellor

's third Cabinet, Nahles has overseen the introduction of a national minimum wage for Germany, guaranteeing workers at least 8.50 euros per hour ($11.75). Merkel had campaigned against a statutory minimum wage in 2013, saying it would threaten Germany's competitive edge and that wage-setting belonged in the hands of companies and employees; however, her party gave ground to the Social Democrats, who made the measure a condition for helping her stay in power for a third term. In early 2015, however, Nahles bowed to pressure from Germany's eastern neighbours, particularly

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...

, and suspended controls by state authorities to check whether foreign truck drivers were being paid the minimum wage. After having campaigned on the promise of early retirement for longtime workers during the elections, Nahles also managed the introduction of an early retirement law in 2014. The move, which – at expected total costs of about 160 billion euros between 2015 and 2030 – is likely to be the most expensive single measure of the legislative period, was sharply criticized as Germany grapples with an aging population and a shrinking work force and promotes austerity among its European Union neighbors. In late 2014, Nahles also announced that the combined pension contributions from employers and employees would be cut by a total of 2 billion euros in 2015 due to the high level of reserves. Following annual negotiations between the

Claims Conference The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, represents the world's Jews in negotiating for compensation and restitution for victims of Nazi persecution and their heirs. According to Section 2(1)(3) of the Proper ...

and the German government in 2014, Nahles successfully introduced a proposal for extending German pension payments totaling 340 million euros ($461 million) for some 40,000

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

survivors who were used by the

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

in ghettos as laborers in exchange for food or meager wages. Most Holocaust survivors suffered serious malnutrition during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the World War II by country, vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great power ...

and also lost almost all of their relatives, leaving them with many medical problems and little or no family support network to help them cope. Following a succession of strikes that disrupted Germany's air and train travel in 2014, Nahles introduced a bill which amended labor laws to allow only one trade union to represent employees of one company in negotiating wage agreements, a move critics say in effect will deprive small unions of their right to strike. In 2015, Nahles commissioned an in-depth study to establish a definition of work-related stress and calculate its economic cost, leading to speculation that the study could pave the way for an "anti-stress act" as proposed by Germany's metalworkers' union. In response to rightwing populist assaults on chancellor Angela Merkel's liberal immigration policies, Nahles presented plans in early 2016 to ban EU migrants from most unemployment benefits for five years after their arrival.

Leader of SPD in Bundestag, 2017–2019

After the Social Democrats experienced their worst result in German post-war history in the 2017 elections, their chairman Martin Schulz nominated Nahles to lead the party's group in the German Parliament. She replaced Thomas Oppermann and was the first woman to serve in this role. In the negotiations to form a fourth coalition government under Merkel, Nahles led the working group on social affairs, alongside Barbara Stamm and Karl-Josef Laumann. In addition to her role as chairwoman, Nahles also joined the Committee on the Election of Judges (''Wahlausschuss''), which is in charge of appointing judges to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany.

Leader of the Social Democratic Party, 2018–2019

Nahles was elected as the first ever female leader of the

on 22 April 2018 at the party convention in Wiesbaden. She won the election with 414 delegate votes, against her opponent Simone Lange, who received 172 delegate votes, which worked out as 66% to 27% respectively. She succeeds

Olaf Scholz Olaf Scholz (; born ) is a German politician who has served as the chancellor of Germany since 8 December 2021. A member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), he previously served as Vice Chancellor under Angela Merkel and as Federal Minister ...

who was acting leader for two months after the resignation of Martin Schulz who led the party to their worst election result since 1933. Nahles was the first female leader of the party in its 155-year history. Furthermore, this was the first time ever in German history that the country's two largest parties were led by women, the other being CDU with its leader

. Nahles was widely credited with stewarding the party toward another coalition government with Merkel's Christian Democrats. On 2 June 2019, Nahles announced that she would resign as SPD leader in the face of personal unpopularity, a major defeat for the SPD in the

2019 European Parliament election The 2019 European Parliament election was held between 23 and 26 May 2019, the ninth parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979. A total of 751 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) represent more than 512 million peop ...

, and a record low result in the Forsa poll of 1 June 2019. She stated she would also resign as leader of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag.

Life after politics

From July 2020, Nahles served as a special advisor to European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights

Nicolas Schmit Nicolas Schmit (born 10 December 1953) is a politician from Luxembourg serving as European Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights since 2019. A member of the Luxembourg Socialist Workers' Party (LSAP), he was previously a member of the governmen ...

. From 2020 to 2022, Nahles served as president of the Federal Posts and Telecommunications Agency in Bonn. In addition, she taught at the

NRW School of Governance The NRW School of Governance is a central institution within the '' Institute for Political science'' at the University Duisburg-Essen and was founded in 2006 under the direction of Karl-Rudolf Korte. It aims, through research and teaching, to ...

of the

University of Duisburg-Essen The University of Duisburg-Essen (german: link=no, Universität Duisburg-Essen) is a public research university in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. In the 2019 ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'', the university was awarded ...

. In 2022, Nahles was nominated as director of the Federal Employment Agency (BA).

Other activities

* Baden-Badener Unternehmer-Gespräche (BBUG), Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2022) *

Central Committee of German Catholics The Central Committee of German Catholics (german: Zentralkomitee der deutschen Katholiken, ZdK) is a lay body comprising representatives of various Catholic organisations in Germany. They organise the Catholic Days in Germany. The organisatio ...

, Member * ''Denkwerk Demokratie'', Member of the Advisory Board *

Maria Laach Abbey Maria Laach Abbey (in German: ''Abtei Maria Laach'', in Latin: ''Abbatia Maria Lacensis'' or ''Abbatia Maria ad Lacum'') is a Benedictine abbey situated on the southwestern shore of the Laacher See (Lake Laach), near Andernach, in the Eifel r ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees * Willy Brandt Center Jerusalem, Member of the Board of Trustees * ''spw – Zeitschrift für sozialistische Politik und Wirtschaft'', Member of the Editorial Board * IG Metall, Member *

Eurosolar Eurosolar - European Association for Renewable Energies (Own spelling: EUROSOLAR) is a German association with headquarters in Bonn. The association has sections in 13 countries (Germany, Bulgaria, Denmark, Georgia, Italy, Luxembourg, Austria, ...

, Member *

Attac The Association pour la Taxation des Transactions financières et pour l'Action Citoyenne (''Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions and Citizen's Action'', ATTAC) is an activist organisation originally created to promote the e ...

, Member * ZDF, Ex-officio Member of the Television Board (2000–2004)

Political positions

Once a leading voice on the SPD's left, Nahles has moved steadily towards the centre. She is known as a provocative and occasionally brusque orator.

Personal life

Nahles' partner was VW manager Horst Neumann from 1997 until 2007., FTD, 14. November 2005 From 2010, she was married to art historian Marcus Frings with whom she has one daughter, born in January 2011. In January 2016 the couple announced their separation. Nahles lives in the village of Weiler, where she was born. A Roman Catholic, she attends Sunday mass in the village regularly. She resides on a farm that belonged to her great-grandparents.Michelle Martin and Andrea Shalal (8 February 2018
Germany's SPD bets on first female chair in 154 years to revive fortunes
''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters Corporation. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency was est ...

''. Since 2017, she has an apartment in Berlin's

Moabit Moabit () is an inner city locality in the borough of Mitte, Berlin, Germany. As of 2016, around 77,000 people lived in Moabit. First inhabited in 1685 and incorporated into Berlin in 1861, the former industrial and working-class neighbourhood ...

district. Nahles enjoys

horse riding Equestrianism (from Latin , , , 'horseman', 'horse'), commonly known as horse riding (Commonwealth English) or horseback riding (American English), includes the disciplines of riding, driving, and vaulting. This broad description includes the ...

. Until an accident in 1986, she also was a

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

athlete.Warum sich Andrea Nahles bestens mit Groschenromanen auskennt
''

Stern The stern is the back or aft-most part of a ship or boat, technically defined as the area built up over the sternpost, extending upwards from the counter rail to the taffrail. The stern lies opposite the bow, the foremost part of a ship. Or ...

'', 22 January 2018.

References

External links