Ronald Pofalla (born May 15, 1959 in Weeze) is a German politician. He was the Chief of Staff of the German Chancellery and a Federal Minister for Special Affairs from 2009 to 2013 as part of the Second Merkel Cabinet.

Early life and education

Pofalla studied social pedagogy at the Fachhochschule in Kleve. After finishing with a Diplom in 1981 he studied law at the University of Cologne. In 1991 he passed the second Staatsexamen. Since that time Pofalla has been licensed to work as a lawyer.

Political career

Pofalla has been a member of the CDU since 1975.[citation needed] At first he was engaged in the Junge Union. He was chairman of the JU in the State of North Rhine-Westphalia from 1986 to 1992.

From 2004 to 2005 Pofalla was deputy chairman of the CDU/CSU's parliamentary group in the Bundestag, and served as the Secretary General of the CDU from 2005 to 2009, when he was appointed to cabinet, succeeding Thomas de Maizière as Chief of Staff.

Ronald Pofalla has been repeatedly criticized for being rude towards other representatives of the Bundestag and other secretaries of the German government. In September 2011 he seriously insulted Wolfgang Bosbach, senior group leader of the CDU/CSU-group in the Bundestag after an in-house discussion about the enhancement of the European Financial Stability Facility.[1]

Following the 2013 national elections, Pofalla resigned as head of the Federal Chancellery.[2]

Private sector

In January, 2014 it was reported that Pofalla would be joining the supervisory board of Deutsche Bahn, the state-owned national rail network of Germany. He had previously worked for the company's subsidiary DB Netz between 2005 and 2009.

At Deutsche Bahn, Pofalla took up a “specially created lobbying post” said to carry compensation of more than a million euros a year.[3] His successor in the Bundestag is Thorsten Hoffmann.

After transitioning to the private sector, Pofalla was made co-chairman of the Petersburg Dialogue, a semiofficial German-Russian symposium.[4]

Political positions

During his time in politics, Pofalla took an active interest in Belarus. In 2012, he publicly condemned the execution of Vladislav Kovalyov and Dmitry Konovalov, both 26, saying this move would further alienate Belarus from Europe. "Lukashenko thus drifts even further away from our European values," he said. "The already heavily burdened relation between Belarus and Europe will be rendered yet more difficult by this."[5]

In the context of the Ukraine crisis, Pofalla has commented that “it wasn’t clever of Barack Obama to have downgraded Russia, in connection with the Ukraine conflict, to the level of a regional power.”[6]

Other activities

References

  1. ^ "Merkel Ally Under Fire for Profanity-Ridden Tirade". Der Spiegel. 
  2. ^ Stefan Wagstyl (December 14, 2013), Germany’s SPD backs coalition with Merkel’s CDU Financial Times.
  3. ^ "German Politician’s Rush to Lobbying Brings Scorn". New York Times. January 3, 2014. 
  4. ^ John Vinocur (November 2, 2015), Europe Gives Up on ‘Hope’ Wall Street Journal.
  5. ^ Luke Harding and Yuras Karmanau (March 18, 2013), EU outraged after Belarus executes two men accused of Metro bombing The Guardian.
  6. ^ John Vinocur (November 2, 2015), Europe Gives Up on ‘Hope’ Wall Street Journal.

External links

Media related to Ronald Pofalla at Wikimedia Commons

Second Merkel Cabinet (2009–2013)
Bundesadler
Bold: Chancellor; A: Served as Minister of Health 2009–2011 and then served as Minister of Economics and Technology and Vice Chancellor (2011–present); B: Served from 2009; C: Served from 2011; D: Served from 2012; E: Served until 2013 V: Vice Chancellor.
Authority control