Michael Gahler (born 22 April 1960) is a German diplomat and politician who has been serving as a

Member of the European Parliament A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been Election, elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the European Coal and S ...

(MEP) since the 1999 election. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union, part of the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian democracy, Christian democratic, liberal conservatism, liberal-conservative, and conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other p ...

Education and early career

Gahler studied in

Mainz Mainz (; #Names and etymology, see below) is the capital and largest city of the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate, and with around 223,000 inhabitants, it is List of cities in Germany by population, Germany's 35th-largest city. It lies in ...

and

Dijon Dijon (, ; ; in Burgundian language (Oïl), Burgundian: ''Digion'') is a city in and the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Côte-d'Or Departments of France, department and of the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté Regions of France, region in eas ...

(1981–87) before training as a lawyer. He joined the

Federal Foreign Office The Federal Foreign Office (, ; abbreviated AA) is the Foreign minister, foreign ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany, a federal agency (Germany), federal agency responsible for both the country's foreign policy and its relationship with ...

in 1990, where he served under ministers

Hans-Dietrich Genscher Hans-Dietrich Genscher (21 March 1927 – 31 March 2016) was a German statesman and a member of the liberal Free Democratic Party (FDP), who served as Federal Minister of the Interior from 1969 to 1974, and as Federal Minister for Foreign Affa ...

Klaus Kinkel Klaus Kinkel (17 December 1936 – 4 March 2019)
Joschka Fischer Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer (born 12 April 1948) is a German former politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens party. He served as the foreign minister and as the vice chancellor of Germany in the cabinet of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 200 ...

. While in the diplomatic service, he worked on international environmental policy (1991–93) and Germany's bilateral relations with the

Baltic states The Baltic states or the Baltic countries is a geopolitical term encompassing Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. All three countries are members of NATO, the European Union, the Eurozone, and the OECD. The three sovereign states on the eastern co ...

and the

Council of the Baltic Sea States The Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) is a regional intergovernmental organisation working on three priority areas: regional identity; regional safety and security; regional sustainability and prosperity. These three priority areas aim ...

. Between 1993 and 1995, he was seconded to work for the CDU party headquarters in Bonn.

Political career

Gahler has been a politician since 1986, when he won a seat on the city council of Hattersheim.

Member of the European Parliament, 1999–present

Gahler was elected to the European Parliament in the 1999 elections. Gahler is Vice-President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. In this capacity, he is also a member the Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group (DEG), which oversees the Parliament's election observation missions. In addition, he serves on the

Subcommittee on Human Rights The Subcommittee on Human Rights (DROI, after the French name ''Sous-commission des droits de l'homme du Parlement européen'') is a subcommittee of the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the European Parliament. It is responsible for issues of human ...

. In addition to his committee assignments, Gahler is a member of the Parliament's delegations to the

ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly The ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly was created to bring together the elected representatives of the European Union (the Members of the European Parliament) and the elected representatives of the African, Caribbean and Pacific states ("ACP ...

and the one for relations with

Iran Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI) and also known as Persia, is a country in West Asia. It borders Iraq to the west, Turkey, Azerbaijan, and Armenia to the northwest, the Caspian Sea to the north, Turkmenistan to the nort ...

. During his first term in parliament, he also served as his parliamentary group's

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

on Iran. In 2014, he was elected chairman of the delegation for relations with the

Pan-African Parliament The Pan-African Parliament (PAP), also known as the African Parliament, is the legislative body of the African Union. It held its inaugural session in March 2004. The Parliament exercises oversight, and has advisory and consultative powers, ha ...

. Gahler is also a member of the Democracy Support and Election Coordination Group (DEG), which oversees the Parliament's election observation missions. He headed the EU Election Observation Mission during the 2011 election for a constituent assembly, the first vote in after the Tunisian revolution. He later led the EU-Election Observer Mission for the general election in Pakistan in 2013. Gahler serves as rapporteur on Commission's communication on defence and as a member of the High-level Group of Personalities on Defence Research chaired by Elżbieta Bieńkowska. In addition, he is as a member of the European Parliament's Sky and Space Intergroup (SSI). On 22 March 2021, he was sanctioned by the Chinese government after the European Union imposed sanctions on China over

Xinjiang Xinjiang,; , SASM/GNC romanization, SASM/GNC: Chinese postal romanization, previously romanized as Sinkiang, officially the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (XUAR), is an Autonomous regions of China, autonomous region of the China, People' ...

. The sanctions were lifted by China in April 2025 following negotiations with

European Parliament The European Parliament (EP) is one of the two legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it ...

President

Roberta Metsola Roberta Metsola (; ; born 18 January 1979) is a Malta, Maltese politician who has served as the president of the European Parliament since January 2022. She is a member of Malta's Nationalist Party (Malta), Nationalist Party (PN) and the European ...

Other activities

* Berlin Security Conference, Member of the Advisory Board * Arctic Forum Foundation, Member of the Advisory Council *

EastWest Institute The EastWest Institute (EWI), originally known as the Institute for East-West Security Studies and officially the Institute for EastWest Studies, Inc., was an international not-for-profit, non-partisan think tank focused on international conflic ...

, Member of the Parliamentarians Network for Conflict Prevention * Kangaroo Group, Chairman * Robert Schuman Foundation, Member of the Board * Robert Schuman Institute Budapest, Member of the Board *

Konrad Adenauer Foundation The Konrad Adenauer Foundation ('' German: Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung e.V.; Abbreviation: KAS'') is a German political party foundation associated with but independent of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU). The foundation's head ...

, Member

Political positions

Gahler is a signatory of the

Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism The Prague Declaration on European Conscience and Communism was a declaration which was initiated by the Czech government and signed on 3 June 2008 by prominent European politicians, former political prisoners and historians, among them former ...

. In a joint letter initiated by

Norbert Röttgen Norbert Alois Röttgen (born 2 July 1965) is a German lawyer and politician who served as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2009 to 2012. A member of t ...

and Anthony Gonzalez ahead of the

47th G7 summit The 47th G7 summit was held from 11 to 13 June 2021 in Cornwall, England, during the United Kingdom's tenure of the presidency of the Group of Seven (G7), an inter-governmental political forum of seven advanced nations. The participants include ...

in 2021, Gahler joined some 70 legislators from Europe, the US and Japan in calling upon their leaders to take a tough stance on China and to "avoid becoming dependent" on the country for technology including

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is the capability of computer, computational systems to perform tasks typically associated with human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and decision-making. It is a field of re ...

and 5G. Gahler also chairs the European Parliament's Taiwan Friendship Group promoting the EU-

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

relationship. In a joint letter with 15 other MEPs from various political groups, Gahler urged the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell in early 2021 to replace the European Union’s ambassador to Cuba for allegedly siding with the country’s Communist leadership.Hans von der Burchard (February 25, 2021)
MEPs urge EU to fire ambassador to Cuba
''Politico Europe''.

Education and early career

Political career

Member of the European Parliament, 1999–present

Other activities

Political positions

References

See also