Friedbert Pflüger
Friedbert Pflüger (born March 6, 1955) is a former German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU). Today, he is a Visiting Professor of International Relations and Director of the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS) at King's College London. Friedbert Pflüger is also managing partner of two business consultancies in Berlin and Arbil (Iraqi-Kurdistan). He is chairman of the Internet Economy Foundation (IE.F), launched in April 2016.[1] Pflüger was a Member of the German Parliament 1990-2006, serving as chairman of the Bundestag's EU-committee (1998–2002) and as foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group (2002–2005). He was Secretary of State in the Federal Ministry of Defence (2005–2006), and the CDU's candidate for Governing Mayor of Berlin in the Berlin state election, 2006. He was a member of the Berlin House of Representatives (2006–2011) and a member of the executive board of the CDU (2000-2010).
Background and education
Friedbert Pflüger was born in Hanover. He received his Abitur (university entrance qualification) at Friedrich Schiller High School in Hanover in 1973. He studied political science, public and constitutional law and economics in Göttingen, Bonn and at Harvard. He received his Master of Arts degree in 1980 and in 1982 his Dr. phil. degree. His doctoral thesis was directed by Karl Dietrich Bracher and examined US-foreign policy "between idealism and realism". In 1980/81, he was a graduate student associate at the Harvard Center for International Affairs (CFIA) under the auspices of Prof. Samuel Huntington. He also taught a seminar on US-human rights policy at Harvard.
Political career
Since 1971, Pflüger has been a member of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU). The first political offices he held were as deputy chairman of the European Democrat Students (EDS) from 1976 to 1978 and as federal chairman of the Association of Christian Democrat Students (RCDS) from 1977 to 1978.
From 1977 to 1985, Pflüger was also a member of the federal executive committee of the Junge Union (youth section of the CDU/CSU) and, since 2000, a member of the federal executive committee of the CDU. In December 2008, he was re-elected to this position by the CDU National Congress in Stuttgart. Since 2006, Pflüger has also been a member of the Executive Council of the European Peoples Party (EPP).
From 1981 to 1984, he worked for the governing mayor of Berlin, Richard von Weizsäcker. When Weizsäcker became the Federal President of Germany in 1984, Pflüger became his spokesman, a job he kept during all the presidency until 1989. Until today, Pflüger sees von Weizsäcker as a "father figure".
Between 1989 and 1991, Pflüger became the manager of the Matuschka Group, Berlin, at that time a leading German investment bank.
In 1990, he was elected as a member of the Bundestag (the German Parliament ), a position in which he remained until 2006. As such, he was from 1994 to 1998 disarmament policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag. From 1998 to 2002, Pflüger was chairman of the Bundestag Committee on the Affairs of the European Union. In the years from 2002 to 2005, he served as foreign policy spokesman of the CDU/CSU Parliamentary Group. In November 2005, Pflüger was appointed Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Defence, a position in which he remained until October 2006. In December 2005, he managed to extend the continuing cooperation with President Karimov and the Uzbek government to use the Termez airbase by the German armed forces.[2]
In March 2006, Pflüger was elected the top candidate of the CDU for the elections in the State of Berlin in September. After spending almost no time preparing his election campaign, he lost to Klaus Wowereit of the Social Democrat Party (SPD), as all the polls had indicated. Keeping his promise to remain active in Berlin politics even in case of an electoral defeat, Pflüger assumed the responsibility as the chairman of the CDU Parliamentary Group in the Berlin House of Representatives and gave up his position as a Parliamentary State Secretary. As an opposition leader, he has since then fought, unsuccessfully, against the closure of Tempelhof Airport. Another aim of his work is to create a more business-friendly environment in Berlin, in order to reduce the high unemployment rate. Pflüger is also concerned about ecologic ways of city-development. Pflüger is an outspoken advocate of opening the CDU for a possible coalition with the Free Democrats (FDP) and the Greens (a so-called "Jamaica"-coalition).
In October 2010 Friedbert Pflüger announced that from now on he will focus on his role as the Director of the European Centre for Energy and Resource Security (EUCERS), King's College London and withdraw from his political functions. He then founded two enterprises in Berlin and Arbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. He is also Senior Advisor to Roland Berger Strategy Consultants.
During his political career, Pflüger has written books, especially on environment/energy and on foreign and security policy. A New World War?: the Islamist Challenge to the West (Ein neuer Weltkrieg? Die islamistische Herausforderung des Westens), which was published in 2004.
Private life
He is married and has two children (one son and one daughter). His former dachshund "Oskar" now lives with Berlin's famous hairdresser Udo Walz.
External links
References
- ↑ http://gruender.wiwo.de/internet-economy-foundation-kampfansage-an-us-konzerne/
- ↑ http://registan.net/2005/12/11/germans-to-stay-at-termez