Katarina Barley
Katarina Barley | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection | |
Assumed office 14 March 2018 | |
Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
Preceded by | Heiko Maas |
Minister of Labour and Social Affairs | |
In office 28 September 2017 – 14 March 2018 Acting | |
Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
Preceded by | Andrea Nahles |
Succeeded by | Hubertus Heil |
Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth | |
In office 2 June 2017 – 14 March 2018 | |
Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
Preceded by | Manuela Schwesig |
Succeeded by | Franziska Giffey |
General Secretary of the Social Democratic Party | |
In office 11 December 2015 – 2 June 2017 | |
Leader |
Sigmar Gabriel Martin Schulz |
Preceded by | Yasmin Fahimi |
Succeeded by | Hubertus Heil |
Member of the Bundestag for Trier and Trier-Saarburg | |
Assumed office 22 September 2013 | |
Personal details | |
Born |
Cologne, West Germany (now Germany) | 19 November 1968
Political party | Social Democratic Party |
Alma mater |
University of Marburg University of South Paris University of Münster |
Signature |
![]() |
Katarina Barley (born 19 November 1968) is a German politician and lawyer who is the current Federal Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection in the fourth Cabinet of Angela Merkel. She served as Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth from 2 June 2017[1] and as acting Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs from 28 September 2017, both until 14 March 2018.[2]
A member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, she has served as a member of the Bundestag since 2013 and was Secretary-General of her party from 2015 to 2017. She holds law degrees from France and Germany and a doctorate in European law, and formerly worked as a corporate lawyer with the prestigious Hamburg law firm Wessing & Berenberg-Gossler, as a judge and as a governmental legal adviser. Barley was born a British citizen and now holds both German and British citizenship.
Background
Barley grew up in Cologne; her father was a British-born journalist who worked with the English-language service of Germany's international broadcaster, the Deutsche Welle, and her mother was a German physician.[3] From birth she only held British citizenship, and she only acquired German citizenship some years later.[4] She is fluent in German, English and French.[5]
Her father (born 1935) was originally from Lincolnshire.[6][7] She has said her father grew up in a working class family on a very small and simple farm that lacked electricity, and that he was awarded a scholarship to attend university after being discovered as a talented pupil by his teacher; however after being turned down by the University of Cambridge for "not having the right accent, the right clothes," he decided as a matter of principle to turn his back on British universities and move to West Germany to attend university instead; he first moved to Hanover and later to West Berlin, where he found society to be more egalitarian and progressive. In Germany he met Barley's mother and was employed as a journalist with Deutsche Welle's English service in Cologne after graduating. Her mother (born 1940) belonged to an upper middle class family from eastern Germany and was the daughter of an engineer in the automotive industry; her family fled the Red Army in 1945 and came as refugees from stalinism to western Germany.[6] Barley has said that she had a happy childhood, but that she grew up with a strong sense of social justice, influenced by her parents' experiences. Although neither of her parents were born in that part of Europe, she identifies culturally as a Rhinelander.[4][8]
Barley's former husband Antonio, a lawyer, is a dual Spanish and Dutch citizen with a Spanish father and a Dutch mother; they met when they both studied in Paris and have two sons.[9][10][11][8]
Education and early career
Barley studied at the University of Marburg and the University of Paris-Sud. She graduated with a French law degree (Diplôme de droit français) in 1990 and a German law degree in 1993. In 1998 she earned a doctoral degree in European law at the University of Münster. Supervised by Bodo Pieroth, her thesis was on the constitutional right of citizens of the European Union to vote in municipal elections.
She was called to the bar in 1998 and worked as a lawyer with the major Hamburg corporate law firm Wessing & Berenberg-Gossler (now Taylor Wessing, following the merger with a British law firm) until 1999. She then worked as a legal adviser for the state government of Rhineland-Palatinate until 2001, when she became an assistant to constitutional judge Renate Jaeger in Karlsruhe. She worked in Luxembourg as a German representative to the Maison de la Grande Région/Haus der Großregion, a cooperation forum for Luxembourg and neighbouring German, French and Belgian regions, from 2005 to 2006.
From 2007 to 2008 she was a judge of the Trier district court and at the Wittlich local court. From 2008 to 2013 she was an adviser on bioethics to the Rhineland-Palatinate State Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection. She left this position when she was elected to Parliament in 2013.[12]
Political career
![](../I/m/2015-12_Katarina_Barley_SPD_Bundesparteitag_by_Olaf_Kosinsky-6.jpg)
Barley joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1994.[7]
In her parliamentary work, Barley represents the constituency of Trier for the Social Democratic Party of Germany.
Barley served as 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. She was also a member of the parliamentary body in charge of appointing judges to the Highest Courts of Justice, namely the Federal Court of Justice (BGH), the Federal Administrative Court (BVerwG), the Federal Fiscal Court (BFH), the Federal Labour Court (BAG), and the Federal Social Court (BSG). In 2014, she was appointed to serve on the Committee on the Election of Judges (Wahlausschuss), which is in charge of appointing judges to the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany. On the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection, she served as her parliamentary group's rapporteur on voluntary euthanasia.
In 2014, Barley briefly served as a member of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union. In addition to her committee assignments, she is a member of the German-British Parliamentary Friendship Group.
Within the SPD parliamentary group, Barley belongs to the Parliamentary Left, a left-wing movement.[13]
In 2015, Barley was proposed by party chairman Sigmar Gabriel to succeed Yasmin Fahimi in the role of general secretary of the SPD, one of the party's most senior positions.[14] From March 2017, she served under the leadership of Martin Schulz and managed the launch of the party’s campaign for the national elections.
Federal Minister, 2017–present
In May 2017, Schulz announced that Barley would succeed Manuela Schwesig as Federal Minister of Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth for the remainder of the legislative term until the elections.[15] She was appointed on 2 June. She additionally became acting Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs on 28 September 2017, when Andrea Nahles stepped down to become the parliamentary leader of the SPD.[16]
On 9 March 2018 Barley was named by Andrea Nahles and Olaf Scholz to succeed Heiko Maas as Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection in the fourth coalition government under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel, sworn in on 14 March 2018.[17]
Other activities
- German Forum for Crime Prevention (DFK), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2018)[18]
- Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation, Ex-Officio Chairwoman of the Board of Trustees (since 2018)[19]
- ZDF, Member of the Television Board (since 2016), Member of the Program Committee[20]
- German Association for Small and Medium-Sized Businesses (BVMW), Member of the Political Advisory Board (since 2016)
- Institute for European Politics (IEP), Member of the Board of Trustees
- Wilhelm Dröscher Prize, Member of the Board of Trustees
- Trier University of Applied Sciences, Member of the Board of Trustees[21]
- German United Services Trade Union (ver.di), Member
References
- ↑ Seibert, Evi (2017-06-02). "Passt schon" [It's okay]. Tagesschau (online) (in German). Hamburg. Retrieved 2017-06-02.
- ↑ "Katarina Barley: Bundesministerin für Familie, Senioren, Frauen und Jugend / Bundesministerin für Arbeit und Soziales" [... Federal Minister for Family, Old People, Women and Young People / Fedeal Minister for Work and Social Affairs] (in German). Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung, Berlin. Retrieved 10 March 2018.
- ↑ Ravensburg, Munzinger-Archiv GmbH,. "Katarina Barley - Munzinger Biographie". www.munzinger.de. Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- 1 2 Europa ist unsere Zukunft, The European
- ↑ Barley zum Brexit: Jetzt ist nichts mehr wie vorher, Berliner Morgenpost
- 1 2 http://www.theeuropean.de/stefan-gross/11830-katarina-barley?head_id=katarina-barley
- 1 2 Und was, wenn es keinen Deal gibt?
- 1 2 Özcan Mutlu (ed.), Politik ohne Grenzen. Migrationsgeschichten aus dem Bundestag. B&S Siebenhaar Verlag
- ↑ https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article152282525/Was-Gabriels-Neue-mit-der-SPD-vorhat.html
- ↑ http://www.zeit.de/2017/47/brexit-katarina-barley-spd-gisela-stuart-labour-streitgespraech
- ↑ https://www.bz-berlin.de/deutschland/der-spd-fehlte-der-schwung-das-ist-jetzt-anders
- ↑ "Deutscher Bundestag - Barley, Katarina". Retrieved 7 July 2017.
- ↑ Members Parlamentarische Linke.
- ↑ Gabriels Kandidatin: Katarina Barley soll neue SPD-Generalsekretärin werden, in: spiegel.de (1. November 2015).
- ↑ German governor is ill, prompting change to Merkel's Cabinet Yahoo!, May 30, 2017.
- ↑ https://www.bundesregierung.de/Webs/Breg/DE/Bundesregierung/Bundeskabinett/KatarinaBarley/_node.html
- ↑ "Bundestag wählt die Kanzlerin am 14. März" [Bundestag elects the Chancellor on 14 March] (in German). Deutscher Bundestag. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
- ↑ Board of Trustees German Forum for Crime Prevention (DFK).
- ↑ Board of Trustees Magnus Hirschfeld Foundation.
- ↑ Members of the Program Committee ZDF.
- ↑ Board of Trustees Trier University of Applied Sciences.
External links
Media related to Katarina Barley at Wikimedia Commons
Political offices | ||
---|---|---|
Preceded by Heiko Maas |
Minister of Justice and Consumer Protection 2018–present |
Incumbent |