Tobias Theodor Hans (born 1 February 1978) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as Minister-President of Saarland from 2018 to 2022.

Political career

Hans became a member of the

Landtag of Saarland The Landtag of Saarland is the state diet (assembly), diet of the German federal state of Saarland. It convenes in Saarbrücken and currently consists of 51 members of five parties. The Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) is the largest part ...

after the Saarland state election in 2009. On 24 November 2015, Hans was elected as chairman of the CDU Parliamentary Group in the Landtag of Saarland. As one of the Saarland's representatives at the Bundesrat, Hans served on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, the Committee on Defence and the Committee on Cultural Affairs. He was also a member of the German-French Friendship Group set up by the Bundesrat and the

French Senate The Senate (, ) is the upper house of the French Parliament, with the lower house being the National Assembly (France), National Assembly, the two houses constituting the legislature of France. It is made up of 348 senators (''sénateurs'' and ...

. Hans was 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 ...

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 ...

. On 1 March 2018, Hans was elected as Minister-President of Saarland by a 40 to 11 vote. He is the youngest serving head of a German state government. Amid the

COVID-19 pandemic in Germany The COVID-19 pandemic in Germany has resulted in confirmed cases of COVID-19 and deaths. On 27 January 2020, the first case in Germany was confirmed near Munich, Bavaria. By mid February, the arising cluster of cases had been fully contained ...

, Hans co-chaired – alongside

Silvia Breher Silvia Maria Breher ( Lucke; born 23 July 1973) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as a Member of the Bundestag for the constituency of Cloppenburg – Vechta since the 2017 federal e ...

, Hendrik Hoppenstedt, Yvonne Magwas and Paul Ziemiak – the CDU’s first ever digital national convention in 2021.

Other activities

* Cultural Foundation of the German States (KdL), chairman of the council *

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 ...

, ex officio member of the board of trustees * RAG-Stiftung, ex officio member of the board of trustees (since 2018)

Political positions

Ahead of the Christian Democrats’ leadership election in 2018, Hans publicly endorsed

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 ...

to succeed

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 ...

as the party's chair. For the 2021 national elections, he later supported

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 Merkel as

Chancellor Chancellor () is a title of various official positions in the governments of many countries. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the (lattice work screens) of a basilica (court hall), which separa ...

.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 ...

'', April 16, 2021.

References

External links

Personal website
, - {{DEFAULTSORT:Hans, Tobias Minister-presidents of Saarland 1978 births Living people Christian Democratic Union of Germany politicians Members of the Landtag of Saarland