Ilse Aigner (born 7 December 1964) is a German politician and member of the

Christian Social Union of Bavaria The Christian Social Union in Bavaria (German: , CSU) is a Christian-democratic and conservative political party in Germany. Having a regionalist identity, the CSU operates only in Bavaria while its larger counterpart, the Christian Democra ...

(CSU). Aigner was born in

Feldkirchen-Westerham Feldkirchen-Westerham is a municipality in the district of Rosenheim, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 22 km west of Rosenheim Rosenheim is a city in Bavaria, Germany. It is an independent city located in the centre of the district ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

, and entered

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 ...

's grand coalition cabinet as Federal Minister of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection on 31 October 2008. She succeeded Horst Seehofer, who had become Minister President of Bavaria. She left her position on 30 September 2013 after being elected as a member of the Bavarian parliament. From 2013, she served as Deputy Minister-President of Bavaria. In addition, she served as State Minister of Economic Affairs; and Media, Energy and Technology (2013–2018) and State Minister of Construction and Transport (2018). After Horst Seehofer resigned as

Minister President A minister-president or minister president is the head of government in a number of European countries or subnational governments with a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government where they preside over the council of ministers. I ...

in order to become Federal Minister of the Interior on 14 March 2018, Aigner became acting Minister President until the election of

Markus Söder Markus Thomas Theodor Söder (born 5 January 1967) is a German politician serving as Minister-President of Bavaria since 2018 and Leader of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) since 2019. Background, education and military service Söde ...

as Minister President. After the 2018 Bavarian State elections, she was elected as President of the Bavarian Landtag, succeeding longterm president Barbara Stamm who lost her seat in the election.

Education and professional background

Aigner completed a professional training as a telecommunications technician in 1985 and joined the electrical installation business of her parents. In 1990 she graduated from the technical academy with the degree of a State Certified Engineer and worked for several years for

Eurocopter Airbus Helicopters SAS (formerly Eurocopter Group) is the helicopter manufacturing division of Airbus. It is the largest in the industry in terms of revenues and turbine helicopter deliveries. Its head office is located at Marseille Provence A ...

in the development of helicopter electric systems. Aigner was elected first in 1994 to the Bavarian State Parliament.

Member of the German Bundestag, 1998–2013

From 1998 Aigner was a member of the

German Bundestag German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

, winning always an absolute majority of the votes in her electoral district. From 2002 to 2005, she was a member of the Budget Committee, where she served as her parliamentary group's rapporteur on the budgets of the Federal Ministry for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture (BMELV) and the aerospace technology portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). From 2005 to 2008, she served as her parliamentary group’s spokesperson for education and research policy.

Federal Minister for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture, 2008–2013

Aigner was a little-known member of parliament with no previous ministerial experience when she took over as Federal Minister for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture in the

cabinet Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to: Furniture * Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers * Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets * Filin ...

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in 2008, replacing Horst Seehofer. During her time in office, Aigner steered through a 2011

dioxin Dioxin may refer to: * 1,2-Dioxin or 1,4-Dioxin, two unsaturated heterocyclic 6-membered rings where two carbon atoms have been replaced by oxygen atoms, giving the molecular formula C4H4O2 * Dibenzo-1,4-dioxin, the parent compound also known ...

s scare that saw contaminated eggs and meat from Germany going to six neighbouring countries. In response, she imposed tough new safety standards for animal feed manufacturers, a move widely supported in the market to retain public confidence. She took a tough line against cultivation of

genetically modified organism A genetically modified organism (GMO) is any organism whose genetic material has been altered using genetic engineering techniques. The exact definition of a genetically modified organism and what constitutes genetic engineering varies, wit ...

s (GMOs) in Germany but received praise from commodity traders when she supported imports of GMOs approved in the United States and South America to secure German supplies of soybeans for animal feed. Meanwhile, she repeatedly expressed concern that outside financial investment in agricultural commodity markets distorts prices, instead calling for more transparency in commodity markets and clear visibility of the difference between futures investment by industrial food buyers and financial investors. In 2009, Aigner caused a controversy when she called for requirements to publish the names and location of recipients of

Common Agricultural Policy The Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) is the agricultural policy of the European Union. It implements a system of agricultural subsidies and other programmes. It was introduced in 1962 and has since then undergone several changes to reduce the ...

(CAP) subsidies to be “suspended” until the implications for data protection have been assessed. In response, the

European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development The Commissioner for Agriculture is a member of the European Commission. The post is currently held by Commissioner Janusz Wojciechowski. The post is in charge of rural issues including most notably the controversial Common Agricultural Policy ...

Mariann Fischer Boel Mariann Fischer Boel (; born 15 April 1943, in Åsum) is a Danish politician, serving as European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development from 2004 to 2009. A member of the party Venstre, she had previously been minister of agri ...

threatened Germany with legal action. Aigner has been outspoken in her criticism of Facebook, which she has said needs to do to protect its users' privacy. In September 2011, she asked all federal ministers in Germany not to use Facebook for public relations and communication. In 2010, she criticized

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over plans to give property owners a four-week deadline to stop their buildings from showing up on the company's then newly launched

Street View Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides interactive panoramas from positions along many streets in the world. It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expa ...

mapping service, demanding that all requests be considered instead. Amid the German debate on the country's

energy transition The energy transition is the process of downshifting fossil fuels and re-developing whole systems to operate on low carbon energy sources. More generally, an energy transition is a significant structural change in an energy system regarding ...

to an energy portfolio dominated by

renewable energy Renewable energy is energy that is collected from renewable resources that are naturally replenished on a human timescale. It includes sources such as sunlight, wind, the movement of water, and geothermal heat. Although most renewable energy ...

, Aigner called in later 2012 for the partial nationalization of the country's

electrical grid An electrical grid is an interconnected network for electricity delivery from producers to consumers. Electrical grids vary in size and can cover whole countries or continents. It consists of:Kaplan, S. M. (2009). Smart Grid. Electrical Power ...

in order to ensure that high-voltage power lines required to transport green energy from offshore windfarms and other sources to the industry-heavy regions of southern Germany are built. In 2012, Aigner announced she would leave her post to return to local politics in her home state of Bavaria following the 2013 national elections, prompting speculation that she was eyeing the post of Bavarian

Minister-President A minister-president or minister president is the head of government in a number of European countries or subnational governments with a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government where they preside over the council of ministers. I ...

Horst Seehofer.

Deputy Minister-President of Bavaria, 2013–2018

Following her return to Bavaria after the state's 2013 elections, Aigner was named

Horst Seehofer's deputy as well as Bavarian Minister for Economic Affairs, Media, Energy and Technology. As one of Bavaria's representatives at the Bundesrat, she served on the Committee on Cultural Affairs; the Committee on Economic Affairs; and the Committee on the Environment, Nature Protection and Reactor Safety. In the negotiations to form a

grand coalition A grand coalition is an arrangement in a multi-party parliamentary system in which the two largest political parties of opposing political ideologies unite in a coalition government. The term is most commonly used in countries where there are ...

following the 2013 national elections, Aigner led the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on economic affairs; her co-chair from the SPD was Hubertus Heil. On 17 December 2013, she became the first woman to ever chair a meeting of the Bavarian State Government. In the cabinet of Minister-President

, Aigner briefly served as State Minister of Construction and Transport in 2018. On the Bundesrat, she became a member of the Committee on Transport and of the Committee on Urban Development, Housing and Regional Planning.

President of the Bavarian Landtag, 2018–present

On 5 November 2018, Aigner was elected with 198 of 205 votes as new President of the Bavarian Landtag.

Other activities

Regulatory bodies

* Bavarian Regulatory Authority for Commercial Broadcasting (BLM), Ex-Officio Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board (2013–2018) * Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Posts and Railway, Ex-Officio Member of the Advisory Board (2013–2018)

Corporate boards

* FilmFernsehFonds Bayern, Ex-Officio Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board (2013–2018) * LfA Förderbank Bayern, Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board (2013–2018) *

Messe München Messe München GmbH is the operator of the Neue Messe München exhibition center, the ICM Internationales Congress Center München and the MOC Veranstaltungscenter München. The exhibition space of the 16 halls together is 180,000 m2 and anoth ...

, Ex-Officio Chairwoman of the Supervisory Board (2013–2018) * Landwirtschaftliche Rentenbank, Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board (2005–2013) * KfW, Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board (2008–2013)

Non-profit organizations

Hanns Seidel Foundation The CSU-associated Hanns Seidel Foundation (german: Hanns-Seidel-Stiftung) is a German party-associated and taxpayer-money funded political research foundation. It was founded in November 1966 after most of the other party-associated foundations ...

, Member of the Board *

Bayerischer Rundfunk Bayerischer Rundfunk (BR; "Bavarian Broadcasting") is a public-service radio and television broadcaster, based in Munich, capital city of the Free State of Bavaria in Germany. BR is a member organization of the ARD consortium of public broadcas ...

(BR), Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2018) *

Deutsches Museum The Deutsches Museum (''German Museum'', officially (English: ''German Museum of Masterpieces of Science and Technology'')) in Munich, Germany, is the world's largest museum of science and technology, with about 28,000 exhibited objects from ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2004) *

Ifo Institute for Economic Research The Ifo Institute for Economic Research is a Munich-based research institution. Ifo is an acronym from Information and Forschung (research). As one of Germany's largest economic think-tanks, it analyses economic policy and is widely known for its ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees * Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Ex-Officio Member of the Senate *

Technical University of Munich The Technical University of Munich (TUM or TU Munich; german: Technische Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It specializes in engineering, technology, medicine, and applied science, applied and Natural sci ...

(TUM), Member of the Board of Trustees * Bavarian Research Foundation, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Trustees (2013–2018) * Max Planck Society, Ex-Officio Member of the Senate (2013–2018) *

Munich International Film Festival Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

, Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board (2013–2018 * Association of the German Army (FKH), Member of the Presidium (2002–2008) * German Energy Agency (DENA), Ex-Officio Member of the Supervisory Board (2005–2011) *

Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics The Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics (MPA) is a research institute located in Garching, just north of Munich, Bavaria, Germany. It is one of many scientific research institutes belonging to the Max Planck Society. The MPA is widely consi ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees (2005–2008) *

Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics The Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics is a Max Planck Institute, located in Garching, near Munich, Germany. In 1991 the Max Planck Institute for Physics and Astrophysics split up into the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial P ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees (2005–2008) *

Wasserwacht The Wasserwacht (; ''water watch'' or ''water guard'') is a German lifeguard service. It is one of the five voluntary societies of the German Red Cross. The Wasserwacht is a non-profit organization made up of on volunteers. Tasks The main ta ...

of the Bavarian Red Cross, Chairwoman (2001–2009)

Personal life

Aigner is a Roman Catholic. She is single and has no children.

References

External links

Official Website
*

sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The ...

, - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Aigner, Ilse 1964 births Living people Agriculture ministers of Germany Women ministers of State Governments in Germany Women federal government ministers of Germany Ministers of the Bavaria State Government Presidents of the Landtag of Bavaria Members of the Landtag of Bavaria Members of the Bundestag 2009–2013 Members of the Bundestag 2005–2009 Members of the Bundestag 2002–2005 Members of the Bundestag 1998–2002 Members of the Bundestag for the Christian Social Union in Bavaria Female members of the Bundestag Members of the Bundestag for Bavaria 21st-century German women politicians People from Rosenheim (district) German Roman Catholics 20th-century German women