Peter Ramsauer (born 10 February 1954) is a German politician of the

Christian Social Union in 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 Democratic ...

(CSU) who served as the Federal Minister of Transport, Building and Urban Development in the

Second Merkel cabinet The Second Merkel cabinet (German: ''Kabinett Merkel II'') was the Government of the Federal Republic of Germany during the 17th legislative session of the Bundestag. Installed after the 2009 federal election, it left office on 17 December 2013 ...

Early life and education

Ramsauer completed his ''

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 ...

'' at the Staatliches Landschulheim Marquartstein gymnasium in 1973—with a year abroad at

Eton College Eton College () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI of England, Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. i ...

—and studied

business economics Business economics is a field in applied economics which uses economic theory and quantitative methods to analyze business enterprises and the factors contributing to the diversity of organizational structures and the relationships of firms with ...

at the

Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich The Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich (simply University of Munich or LMU; german: Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) is a public research university in Munich, Germany. It is Germany's sixth-oldest university in continuous operatio ...

, where he obtained his

Diplom A ''Diplom'' (, from grc, δίπλωμα ''diploma'') is an academic degree in the German-speaking countries Germany, Austria, and Switzerland and a similarly named degree in some other European countries including Albania, Bulgaria, Belarus, ...

a in 1979 and his

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * '' Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. al ...

in 1985. Ramsauer has also qualified as a professional

miller A miller is a person who operates a mill, a machine to grind a grain (for example corn or wheat) to make flour. Milling is among the oldest of human occupations. "Miller", "Milne" and other variants are common surnames, as are their equivalent ...

in accordance with the traditional occupation of his ancestry. He speaks English and French. In addition, he is also a competent pianist. He is married and has four daughters. His wife Susanne, a home economics teacher, is a cousin of American actress

Sandra Bullock Sandra Annette Bullock (; born July 26, 1964) is an American actress and producer. The recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Golden Globe Award, Bullock was the world's highest-paid actress in 2010 and 2014. In 2010 ...

Political career

Ramsauer joined the conservative

Young Union The Junge Union Deutschlands (''Young Union of Germany'') or JU is the joint youth organisation of the two conservative German political parties, CDU and CSU. Membership is limited to individuals between 14 and 35 years of age. Junge Union claim ...

(JU) youth organisation in 1972 and the CSU in 1973. He was elected Bavarian vice-chairman of the JU in 1983 and vice-chairman of the CSU in 2008. In 1978 Ramsauer obtained a seat in the municipal diet (''Stadtrat'') of Traunreut and in 1984 became a member of the

district A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivision ...

assembly of

Traunstein Traunstein ( Central Bavarian: ''Traunstoa'') is a town in the south-eastern part of Bavaria, Germany, and is the administrative center of a much larger district of the same name. The town serves as a local government, retail, health services ...

. Ramsauer ran successfully in the 1990 federal election and has been a member of 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 ...

parliament since then. From 1998 to 2005 he served as CSU

Chief Whip The Chief Whip is a political leader whose task is to enforce the whipping system, which aims to ensure that legislators who are members of a political party attend and vote on legislation as the party leadership prescribes. United Kingdom ...

of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. As such, he was also a member of the parliament's Council of Elders, which – among other duties – determines daily legislative agenda items and assigning committee chairpersons based on party representation. Ramsauer was elected to the head of the Bundestag group of CSU parliamentarians in 2005, succeeding

Michael Glos Michael Glos (born 14 December 1944) is a German politician of the Christian Social Union (CSU) who served as Minister for Economics and Technology in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 22 November 2005 until 10 February 2009. Ea ...

; in that capacity, he led the

CDU/CSU CDU/CSU, unofficially the Union parties (german: Unionsparteien, ) or the Union, is a centre-right Christian-democratic political alliance of two political parties in Germany: the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Soc ...

parliamentary group with his co-chair from the CDU, Volker Kauder. From 2005 until 2009, he also served on the Committee on the Election of Judges (''Wahlausschuss''), which is in charge of appointing judges to the

Federal Constitutional Court of Germany The Federal Constitutional Court (german: link=no, Bundesverfassungsgericht ; abbreviated: ) is the supreme constitutional court for the Federal Republic of Germany, established by the constitution or Basic Law () of Germany. Since its in ...

.In the 2009 elections Ramsauer was re-elected by 54.6 percent of the votes cast. On 28 October 2009 Ramsauer was appointed Federal Minister of Transport, Building and Urban Development at the behest of Chancellor

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 ...

, succeeding

Wolfgang Tiefensee Wolfgang Tiefensee (born 4 January 1955) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He was the Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development in the grand coalition cabinet led by Angela Merkel between 2005 and ...

. On the occasion of the sixtieth anniversary of the

diplomatic relations Diplomacy comprises spoken or written communication by representatives of states (such as leaders and diplomats) intended to influence events in the international system.Ronald Peter Barston, ''Modern diplomacy'', Pearson Education, 2006, p. 1 ...

between German and

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area, the List of countries and dependencies by population, second-most populous ...

, he participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the two countries’ governments in Delhi in May 2011. After leaving government following the 2013 elections, Ramsauer chaired the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy (2013–2017) and later the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development (2017–2021). In the negotiations to form another

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 ...

under the leadership of Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, he was part of the working group on economic policy, led by

Thomas Strobl Thomas Strobl (born 17 March 1960) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as Deputy Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg since 2016. From 1998 until 2016 Strobl was a member of the German Bundest ...

Alexander Dobrindt Alexander Dobrindt (born 7 June 1970) is a German politician of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria (CSU). Between 2013 and 2017, he served as Federal Minister of Transport and Digital Infrastructure in the government of Chancellor Angela Mer ...

and

Brigitte Zypries Brigitte Zypries (born 16 November 1953) is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Between 2017 and 2018, she served as Minister for Economics and Energy in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel; she was the f ...

. In early 2020, Ramsauer co-founded an informal cross-party group of MPs from the CDU, CSU and FDP parties who opposed a potential coalition government between CDU/CSU and the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundation f ...

. Since the 2021 elections, Ramsauer has been serving on the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Political positions

Economic policy

In 2010, in his capacity as transport minister, Ramsauer rejected plans for an initial public offering of rail operator

Deutsche Bahn The (; abbreviated as DB or DB AG) is the national railway company of Germany. Headquartered in the Bahntower in Berlin, it is a joint-stock company ( AG). The Federal Republic of Germany is its single shareholder. describes itself as the ...

, arguing that the company first needed to focus on improving quality, security, cleanliness, punctuality and reliability of its trains. In 2014, Ramsauer publicly criticized France for announcing plans to buy a 20 percent stake in

Alstom Alstom SA is a French multinational corporation, multinational rolling stock manufacturer operating worldwide in rail transport markets, active in the fields of passenger transportation, signalling, and locomotives, with products including the A ...

despite its heavy debts and budget deficit and accused the country's government of showing "ice-cold" national interests in choosing U.S. firm

General Electric General Electric Company (GE) is an American multinational conglomerate founded in 1892, and incorporated in New York state and headquartered in Boston. The company operated in sectors including healthcare, aviation, power, renewable ene ...

over German Siemens for an alliance with Alstom. When

Deutsche Bank Deutsche Bank AG (), sometimes referred to simply as Deutsche, is a German multinational investment bank and financial services company headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany, and dual-listed on the Frankfurt Stock Exchange and the New York Sto ...

came under pressure after the

United States Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the United States government tasked with the enforcement of federal law and administration of justice in the United Stat ...

requested it pay $14 billion to settle claims of mis-selling

mortgage-backed securities A mortgage-backed security (MBS) is a type of asset-backed security (an 'instrument') which is secured by a mortgage or collection of mortgages. The mortgages are aggregated and sold to a group of individuals (a government agency or investment ba ...

in 2016, Ramsauer accused the Obama Administration of measures that "have the characteristics of an economic war." In October 2016, Ramsauer accompanied Federal Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy

Sigmar Gabriel Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel (born 12 September 1959) is a German politician who was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2018 and the vice-chancellor of Germany from 2013 to 2018. He was Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germa ...

Tehran Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...

to attend the German-Iranian Joint Economic Commission's first meeting in 15 years.

Relations to Russia

In 2007, Ramsauer accompanied

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 ...

Edmund Stoiber Edmund Rüdiger Stoiber (born 28 September 1941) is a German politician who served as the 16th Minister President of the state of Bavaria between 1993 and 2007 and chairman of the Christian Social Union (CSU) between 1999 and 2007. In 2002, he r ...

of Bavaria to a meeting with President

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...

. In July 2010, he accompanied Merkel on an official trip to Moscow for meetings with President Dmitry Medvedev. Amid a 2014 debate over whether Germany needs to rethink its energy strategy and reduce its dependence on Russian gas imports due to the

Russo-Ukrainian War The Russo-Ukrainian War; uk, російсько-українська війна, rosiisko-ukrainska viina. has been ongoing between Russia (alongside Russian separatists in Ukraine) and Ukraine since February 2014. Following Ukraine's Rev ...

, Ramsauer spoke out in favour of considering importing

shale gas Shale gas is an unconventional natural gas that is found trapped within shale formations. Since the 1990s a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has made large volumes of shale gas more economical to produce, and some ...

from the United States, or alternative embracing "domestic resources". In November 2015, in his capacity as chairman of the German Parliament's Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy, he agreed with his Russian counterpart Ivan Grachev to set up an informal German-Russian working group on energy cooperation, convening parliamentarians and business representatives from both countries.

European integration

On 27 January 2015, Ramsauer voted against the Merkel government’s proposal for a four-month extension of Greece's bailout; in doing so, he joined a record number of 29 dissenters from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group who expressed scepticism about whether the Greek government under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras could be trusted to deliver on its reform pledges.

Human rights

In June 2017, Ramsauer voted against Germany's introduction of

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...

Controversy

Recognition of the Polish-German border

During a ballot in Bundestag on 17 October 1991, Ramsauer voted against officially accepting the Oder-Neisse line, which serves as the border between Germany and Poland since the aftermath of

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 vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

, as the final Polish-German Frontier.

Alleged racist attack

In 2016, Peter Ramsauer was accused of making a racist attack against a photojournalist during a meeting between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and German Vice-Chancellor

. During the German Delegation's visit at the Greek Prime Minister's official seat, Ramsauer had an accidental physical contact with the photojournalist. The photographer stated that Ramsauer attacked him saying, "Don't touch me you filthy Greek" first in German language ("Fass mich nicht an, Du dreckiger Grieche") and later in English. Ramsauer denied the insult on several occasions but confirmed having received unpleasant physical contact with a photographer at the event. The incident made the news in Germany and in Greece. Ramsauer had been the most prominent politician in Germany to come out in favour of Greece leaving the euro zone.

Other activities

Peter Ramsauer is a member of a conservative student fraternity based in Munich, Franco-Bavaria, which left its former association Deutsche Burschenschaft in 2013 to distance itself from right-wing extremism. Since June 2014, Ramsauer has been the President of the Ghorfa Arab German Chamber of Commerce and Industry, an association that facilitates the commercial documents of businesses that want to export to Arab countries. Ghorfa has been the subject of controversy for issuing certificates verifying that no parts of an exported product were produced in Israel. He has been described as a "shepherd" of the German language, seeking to avoid English loanwords.

Corporate boards

* Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2018) * Aebi Schmidt Holding (ASH), Member of the board of directors * Münchener Hypothekenbank, Member of the Supervisory Board (2014–2019)Members of the Supervisory Board
Münchener Hypothekenbank eG. * Gothaer Versicherungsbank, Member of the Advisory Board * CNC Communications & Network Consulting, Member of the Board of Experts * SKW Stahl-Metallurgie Holding, Member of the Advisory Board (2002–2006) *

KfW The KfW, which together with its subsidiaries DEG, KfW IPEX-Bank and FuB forms the KfW Bankengruppe ("banking group"), is a German state-owned investment and development bank, based in Frankfurt. As of 2014, it is the world's largest national d ...

, ex-officio Member of the Board of Supervisory Directors (2009–2013) * German Energy Agency (DENA), Member of the Supervisory Board (2009–2012) * Odewald & Companie, Member of the Advisory Board (2005–2009)

Non-profit organisations

* Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Ghorfa), President (since 2014) * Hanns Seidel Foundation, Member *

Quadriga A () is a car or chariot drawn by four horses abreast and favoured for chariot racing in Classical Antiquity and the Roman Empire until the Late Middle Ages. The word derives from the Latin contraction of , from ': four, and ': yoke. The four- ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees (−2011) *

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 (2002–2010) *

German Council on Foreign Relations The German Council on Foreign Relations (german: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik e. V. (DGAP)) is Germany's national foreign policy network and policy research institute. As an independent, private, non-partisan and non-profit orga ...

(DGAP), Member of the Presidium (2005–2009) * German-Korean Society, Vice-President (1998–2002)

References

External links