Johann Wadephul

Wadephul joined the CDU party in 1982.

From 1993, Wadephul was a member of the leadership of the CDU in Schleswig-Holstein. He served as Secretary General of the CDU in the state from 1997 to 2000, under the leadership of party chairman Peter Kurt Würzbach. From 2000 until 2002, he briefly chaired the party in Schleswig-Holstein, but was soon succeeded by Peter Harry Carstensen. During his time as chairman, he publicly endorsed Edmund Stoiber as the party’s candidate to challenge incumbent Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in the 2002 federal elections.[2]

Following the 2000 state elections, Wadephul also became a Member of the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein, where he succeeded Carstensen as chairman of the CDU parliamentary group when the party won the 2005 elections. He did not run for re-election in 2009.

Wadephul has been a Member of the German Bundestag since the 2009 elections, representing the Rendsburg-Eckernförde district.

Wadephul first served on the Committee on Labour and Social Affairs. From the 2013 elections, he was the chairman of the Committee on the Scrutiny of Elections, Immunity and the Rules of Procedure. In addition, he served as member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and of the parliament’s Council of Elders, which – among other duties – determines daily legislative agenda items and assigning committee chairpersons based on party representation.

On the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Wadephul was his parliamentary group’s rapporteur on relations with the Middle East, Arab states of the Persian Gulf and Iran. He also covered issues related to Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and the Western Balkans. In addition to his committee assignments, he served as Deputy Chairman of the German-Belarusian Parliamentary Friendship Group.

In the negotiations to form a coalition government under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, Wadephul was part of the working group on foreign policy, led by Ursula von der Leyen, Gerd Müller and Sigmar Gabriel. He has since been serving as deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group under the leadership of Volker Kauder; in this capacity, he succeeded Franz Josef Jung.

In addition to his work in parliament, Wadephul has been a member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) since 2010. As member of the CDU, he is part of the Group of the European People's Party. Since joining the Assembly, he has served on various committees, including Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights, the Committee on Rules of Procedure, Immunities and Institutional Affairs and the Sub-Committee on Ethics.