Reiner Erich Haseloff (born 19 February 1954) is a German politician who serves as the Minister President of

Saxony-Anhalt Saxony-Anhalt ( ; ) is a States of Germany, state of Germany, bordering the states of Brandenburg, Saxony, Thuringia and Lower Saxony. It covers an area of and has a population of 2.17 million inhabitants, making it the List of German states ...

. On 9 October 2020, he was elected President of the Bundesrat. His one-year term started on 1 November 2020.

Political career

Reiner Haseloff joined the then bloc party CDU of the GDR in 1976. He has been a member of the state executive of the CDU Saxony-Anhalt since 1990 and was deputy district administrator of the Wittenberg district from 1990 to 1992. From 2004 to 2012, Haseloff was deputy state chairman of the CDU. Since December 2008 he has been a member of the CDU federal executive committee. From 2002 to 2006, Haseloff served as State Secretary at the State Ministry for Economic Affairs and Labour under minister Horst Rehberger in the first cabinet of Minister President Wolfgang Böhmer. In 2006, he succeeded Rehberger and became a member of Böhmer's second cabinet. In the negotiations to form a

coalition government A coalition government, or coalition cabinet, is a government by political parties that enter into a power-sharing arrangement of the executive. Coalition governments usually occur when no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an ...

of the Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian CSU) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) following the 2009 federal elections, Haseloff was part of the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on labour and social affairs, led by Ronald Pofalla and Dirk Niebel.

Minister President of Saxony-Anhalt, 2011–present

When Böhmer announced his resignation ahead of the 2011 state elections, Haseloff was the candidate of the CDU. He had already gained national attention by proposing that unemployed people who had no job prospects work for the public interest, a plan that since then has been adopted in a number of federal states. From 2014 and 2016, Haseloff was one of the members of Germany's temporary National Commission on the Disposal of Radioactive Waste. During the

European migrant crisis The 2015 European migrant crisis was a period of significantly increased movement of refugees and Human migration, migrants into Europe, mostly from the Middle East. An estimated 1.3 million people came to the continent to request Right of asyl ...

, in November 2015, Haseloff kept distance to

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German retired politician who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. She is the only woman to have held the office. She was Leader of the Opposition from 2002 to 2005 and Leade ...

by proposing an "upper limit" (German: ''Obergrenze'') of refugees as the CSU party did, for the state as well as on federal level.„Wir sollten die Grenze für Flüchtlingszahl beziffern“

Frankfurter Allgemeine The (; ''FAZ''; "Frankfurt General Newspaper") is a German newspaper founded in 1949. It is published daily in Frankfurt and is considered a newspaper of record for Germany. Its Sunday edition is the ''Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung'' ( ...

, in German At the same time he didn't join a proposal of fellow CDU 2016 state election campaigners

Julia Klöckner Julia Klöckner (born 16 December 1972) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (Germany), Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as President of the Bundestag, President of the German Bundestag since 25 March 2025 ...

and Guido Wolf for flexible daily quotas for refugee inflows into Germany, which was a step beyond Merkel's "open-doors" policy but not as far as the CSU party, reportedly in deference to his SPD coalition partner in the state government. Haseloff said, the chancellor "elaborately fought for a European solution" in the refugee crisis, but this was "out of sight". In the 2016 state elections, Haseloff was able to keep power in Saxony-Anhalt, with his CDU taking approximately 29 percent of the vote and thereby remaining the largest party in the state parliament, but faced a strong AfD right wing opposition. Haseloff stated after the elections that "the actual rise, which came for the AfD in the polls has a city name: It's Cologne." He explained that the rise of the votes for his party in the state came because "we at least did nothing wrong as a Christian Democratic Union here in Saxony-Anhalt." Following the elections, Saxony-Anhalt became the first of the German states to be governed by a triple coalition of CDU, SPD and the Green Party. On 25 April 2016, Haseloff was re-elected in parliament as minister president of the state during a second ballot, where he managed to gain one vote more than the coalition majority.

Role in national politics

As one of the state's representatives at the Bundesrat, Haseloff serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs. Within his party, Haseloff has been part of the CDU's national leadership team around successive chairwomen

(2008–2018) and

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (; Kramp; born 9 August 1962), sometimes referred to by her initials of AKK, is a retired German politician who served as Federal Ministry of Defence (Germany), Minister of Defence from 2019 to 2021 and as Leader of th ...

(2018–2021) since 2008. He served as a CDU delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the

President of Germany The president of Germany, officially titled the Federal President of the Federal Republic of Germany (),The official title within Germany is ', with ' being added in international correspondence; the official English title is President of the F ...

in 2009, 2010, 2012,

2017 2017 was designated as the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development by the United Nations General Assembly. Events January * January 1 – Istanbul nightclub shooting: A gunman dressed as Santa Claus opens fire at the ...

and

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

. In the negotiations to form a so-called

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under

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Merkel following the 2013 federal elections, Haseloff was part of the CDU/CSU delegation's leadership team. In the – unsuccessful – negotiations to form a

with 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 Democra ...

(CSU), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as environmentalism and social justice. Green party platforms typically embrace Social democracy, social democratic economic policies and fo ...

following the 2017 national elections, Haseloff was part of the 19-member delegation of the CDU. Since 2022, Haseloff has been chairing an internal CDU working group in charge of drafting recommendation on reforming Germany’s

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Other activities

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 museum, science and technology museum, technology, with a ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees * Central Committee of German Catholics, Member * Committee for the preparation of the Reformation anniversary 2017, Member of the Board of Trustees * European Chemical Regions Network (ECRN), President (2006-2011) * International Building Exhibition (IBA) Urban Redevelopment 2010, Member of the Board of Trustees

Political positions

Ahead of the 2021 national elections, Haseloff endorsed

Markus Söder Markus Thomas Theodor Söder (born 5 January 1967) is a German politician from Bavaria, Germany serving as List of Ministers-President of Bavaria, Minister-President of Bavaria since 2018 and Leader of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria, lead ...

as the Christian Democrats' joint candidate to succeed

.Second CDU premier drops support for Laschet's German chancellery run
''

Reuters Reuters ( ) is a news agency owned by Thomson Reuters. It employs around 2,500 journalists and 600 photojournalists in about 200 locations worldwide writing in 16 languages. Reuters is one of the largest news agencies in the world. The agency ...

'', 16 April 2021.

Distinctions

* :

Knight A knight is a person granted an honorary title of a knighthood by a head of state (including the pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church, or the country, especially in a military capacity. The concept of a knighthood ...

of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre (2003) * GER Bundesverdienstkreuz 6 GrVK Stern Band

Grand Cross of the

Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany The Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (, or , BVO) is the highest state decoration, federal decoration of the Federal Republic of Germany. It may be awarded for any field of endeavor. It was created by the first List of president ...

(2023)

References

External links

Home page of Reiner Haseloff
, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Haseloff, Reiner 1954 births Living people People from Saxony-Anhalt German Roman Catholics Christian Democratic Union of Germany politicians Members of the Landtag of Saxony-Anhalt Minister-presidents of Saxony-Anhalt Presidents of the German Bundesrat Members of the Order of the Holy Sepulchre Humboldt University of Berlin alumni People from Bezirk Halle