Julia Klöckner

Julia Klöckner
Julia Klöckner in 2014
Member of the Bundestag
for Kreuznach
In office
15 December 2005 – 27 May 2011
Preceded by Fritz Rudolf body
Succeeded by Antje Lezius
Personal details
Born 16 December 1972
Bad Kreuznach, Germany
Nationality German
Political party CDU
Alma mater University of Mainz
Religion Roman Catholicism

Julia Klöckner (born 16 December 1972) is a German politician and member of the Christian Democratic Union or CDU. She first became known in 1995 when she was chosen as the German Wine Queen (Deutsche Weinkönigin). From 2002 to 2011 she was a member of parliament in the German Bundestag and, from 2009 to February 2011, she was a parliamentary undersecretary in the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection. Since 25 September 2010 she has chaired the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU party.[1] and, since March 2011, the CDU party in the Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate, the state parliament. Since 15 November 2010 she has been on the CDU's national Präsidium (executive committee) and on 4 December 2012 she was elected as the Deputy Federal Chairwoman of the CDU.

Early life and education

Klöckner was born on 16 December 1972 in the German spa town of Bad Kreuznach. She grew up in Guldental as the youngest child of a vintner's family.[2] After taking her Abitur in 1992 at the Gymnasium an der Stadtmauer grammar school in Bad Kreuznach, Klöckner studied for a degree in political science, Catholic theology and education, passing her first Staatsexamen in 1998 in Social Studies and Religion and receiving her Master of Arts (MA) at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz.

Professional career

After her intermediate examination, Klöckner worked, with special permission, from 1994 to 1998 as a religious education teacher at a primary school in Wiesbaden, and then began her practical training as a journalist. In 1994 she was chosen as the "Wine Queen of the Nahe valley" (Nahe Weinkönigin) and, in 1995, as the German Wine Queen.[3][4] From 1998 to 2002, Klöckner worked in the department of regional culture at SWR television in Mainz as a freelancer and, from 2000 to 2002, she was editor of the magazine, weinwelt ("Wine World").[5][6] From 2001 to 2009, she was chief editor of Sommelier magazine published by Meininger Verlag.[5][6]

Political career

Klöckner at the CDU party conference in 2012

Early beginnings

In 1996, Klöckner joined the Junge Union (JU), the Frauen Union (FU, the German "Women's Union"), the Christian Democratic Union party, the Europa Union and the Young European Federalists. In 2001 she became a member of the JU's local board in Bad Kreuznach, an office she held until 2007. In the same year she also became a member of the local (county-level) CDU board in Bad Kreuznach.[7] In 2002, Klöckner became a member of the Regional Committee on Security Policy and the Armed Forces[8] and the JU Regional Executive of Rhineland-Palatinate, where she stayed until 2007.

Member of the Bundestag, 2002-2011

First term, 2002-2005

In October 2002, following the German federal election that year, Klöckner entered the German parliament, the Bundestag, via the Rhineland-Palatinate list of state candidates, having scored 7% less than her SPD rival Fritz-Rudolf Körper in the first round of voting.

On 14 November 2002 Klöckner was elected as one of the secretaries of the Bundestag's plenary sessions.[9][10] In addition she joined the board of trustees of the Federal Agency for Civic Education.[11] Later she became a member of the Committee for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture.[12] and alternate member of the Committee for Human Rights and Humanitarian Aid.[13] In 2003 she joined the commission of inquiry into "Ethics and Rights in Modern Medicine" and was a member of its sub-groups: "Ethics in Bioscientific and Medical Research" and "Transplantation Medicine".[14]

Klöckner became a member of the "Young Group" (Junge Gruppe) of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, where she served as deputy chairwoman.[15]

Second term, 2005-2009

In the federal elections in 2005 Klöckner secured the constituency of Kreuznach for the CDU for the first time in around 50 years with 43.0% of voters placing her first. On 15 December 2005 she was re-elected as secretary to the Bundestag.[16]

On 24 January 2006 Klöckner was elected to the board of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag.[17] She was a full member of the Committee for consumer Protection[18] and an alternate member of the Committee for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety.[19] On 2 June 2006 she also joined the Parliamentary Advisory Board for Sustainable Development.[20][21]

On 23 October 2007 Klöckner was unanimously voted as Deputy Chairwoman and thus as Chairwoman of the working group for Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection in the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. She was part of this working group until 2009.[22]

In July 2008 Klöckner began a two-year stint as chairwoman of the newly constituted consumer advisory body of Schufa established to represent the interests of consumer protection.

In the 2009 federal elections Klöckner was confirmed as the directly elected member of parliament for the constituency of Kreuznach/Birkenfeld with 47.0% of first votes and an 18% lead over her SPD rival.[23]

After the constitution of the Rhineland-Palatinate parliament on 18 May 2011, Klöckner resigned her seat in the Bundestag on 27 May 2011.[24][25]

Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, 2009-2011

On 29 October 2009, Klöckner was appointed as a Parliamentary State Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture.[26] In February 2011 she resigned from this office in order to run the CDU in Rhineland-Palatinate.[27] Her successor in this office is Peter Bleser (CDU).[28]

State politics in Rhineland-Palatinate

Klöckner attending parliament in 2014.

Within the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU, Klöckner moved up to the party’s state executive committee in 2003. On 13 June 2004 Julia Klöckner was elected to the county council (Kreistag) of Bad Kreuznach with 42,888 votes, the highest number of votes of the 50 CDU candidates.[29] In the next council elections on 7 June 2009 she was again elected with the most votes (this time 46,759 votes).[30][31]

On 8 July 2006 Klöckner was elected as Deputy State Chairwoman of the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU with 91.5% of the vote on the CDU Party's 59th Regional Day.[32]

On 17 November 2009, Klöckner was proposed by the CDU chairman for Rhineland-Palatinate, Christian Baldauf, as the lead candidate for the 2011 state elections.[33] On 17 April 2010 she was duly elected as the CDU's front runner at the CDU state party conference in Bingen am Rhein with 400 out of 402 votes cast (99.5%).[34] On 25 September 2010 at the state party conference in Mainz, she was elected as leader of the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU with 96.9% of the vote.[35][36] On 4 December 2010 she achieved first place in the state list for the 2011 elections at the party conference of the Rhineland-Palatinate CDU Association in Ramstein-Miesenbach, gaining 99.6% of the votes.[37]

In the state elections on 27 March 2011, voters gave Julia Klöckner the direct mandate for the constituency of Bad Kreuznach with 44.4% of the votes.[38] After scoring their lowest result in the 2006 elections with only 32.8% of the vote, the CDU's performance state level was 2.5% higher than the national trend and just 0.5% behind the SDP, who suffered a historic loss of 9.9% of the vote.

Following the state elections, Klöckner was unanimously elected as the CDU's party leader in the Rhineland-Palatinate parliament on 30 March 2011.[39]

Role in national politics

In 2003, Klöckner was elected to the federal board of the Frauen Union. In addition she became a deputy member in the board of the European People's Party. On 14 May 2007 she became the Deputy Chairwoman of the CDU Commission on the "Preservation of the Creation: Climatic, Environmental and Consumer Protection" - where she led the Sub-Commission on Consumer Protection.

At the 23rd national CDU party conference on 15 November 2010, Klöckner became a member of the CDU Präsidium or steering committee with 94.43% of the votes, the highest number of votes out of all 40 candidates.[40] On 4 December 2012 she was elected as Deputy Chairwoman of the national CDU party with 92.92% of the votes (once again the best result).[41]

Following the 2013 federal elections, Klöckner was part of the CDU/CSU team in the negotiations with the SPD on a coalition agreement.

Other activities

Julia Klöckner in 2010


In addition, Klöckner is the patron of the Rhineland-Palatinate State branch of the German Association for Muscular Dystrophy,[48] the German Multiple Sclerosis Association of Bad Kreuznach, the Friends of the Christian Hospice Movement in Bad Kreuznach, Ambulance Service,[49] of the multi-generational home in Idar-Oberstein[50] and the AKTION NIERE ("Kidney Action") Foundation.[51]

Klöckner is an honorary member of the German Language Campaign,[52] ambassador for the Lützelsoon Foundation that supports children suffering from cancer and other issues together with their families,[53] the initiator and a judge of the Prize for Consumer Journalism under the patronage of former President of Germany, Roman Herzog.[54] Klöckner is currently a board member of the German Parliamentary Society. She also founded a parliamentary wine forum.[55] and belongs to the all-party discussion group, Hospiz.

Political positions

Social policy

Klöckner is a declared opponent of abortion and also favors a ban on stem cell research.[56]

Klöckner herself has benefited from a CDU gender quorum introduced in 1996, as it provided her a good position on the party's candidate list in for the 2002 federal elections. Without the quota, Klöckner has acknowledged in the past, she would not have made it as far within her party.[57] In 2013, she demanded a legally enforced quota calling on publicly traded companies to have women hold a minimum of 30 percent of the seats on their supervisory boards, starting in 2020.[58]

Human rights

In May 2014, Klöckner urged Turks living in Germany to boycott an address of Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to protest his government's crackdown on protests that followed the Soma mine disaster that killed 301 people.[59][60]

When news media revealed images purporting to show security guards abusing asylum seekers at a shelter in western Germany, Klöckner said the incident should prompt a review of the country's refugee policy and infrastructure.[61]

Later that year, Klöckner spoke out in favor of banning the burka, arguing said that the German constitution emphasized that women and men were of equal value and that "looking at people's faces" also belonged to the culture of an open society.[62]

Controversy

Tweet on the 2009 presidential election

During the German presidential election, Klöckner prematurely reported on Twitter the results of the vote by the Federal Assembly from the official electoral polling commission (Zählkommission).[63][64] About 15 minutes before the official announcement of the election result, she tweeted a reference to the last day of the German football premier league season: #Bundesversammlung Leute, Ihr könnt in Ruhe Fußball gucke. Wahlgang hat geklappt!“. ("Federal assembly, people, you can watch football in peace. Election a success!"). Other members of parliament also announced the result via SMS and Twitter prematurely, but justified themselves later, by arguing that they had not participated in the vote counting.

Following criticism of her premature announcement of the result, Klöckner resigned from her post as secretary to the Bundestag.[65]

Publications

References

  1. ↑ Danke für 96,9 % zu meiner Wahl als Landesvorsitzende! dated 25 September 2010
  2. ↑ weingut-aloys-kloeckner.de: Familie – Reben brauchen feste Wurzeln ... Menschen auch.
  3. ↑ deutscheweinkoenigin.de: Bildergalerie der Majestäten – Julia Klöckner, 47. Deutsche Weinkönigin
  4. ↑ Sven Astheimer: „Zwischen Glamour und Gelände“, in: FAZ.net, 17 November 2009 (current version of a text dated 3 January 2009 in the Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung)
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Lebenslauf at juliakloeckner.de. Retrieved 31 Oct 2013.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 Julia Klöckner at www.cdu.de. Retrieved 31 Oct 2013.
  7. ↑ cdu-kv-badkreuznach.de: CDU-Kreisvorstand
  8. ↑ juliawaehlen.de: Klöckners Kurier (pdf: 324 kB)
  9. ↑ bundestag.de: Deutscher Bundestag Stenografischer Bericht 10. Sitzung Berlin, Thu 14 Nov 2002 (pdf: 883 kB)
  10. ↑ bundestag.de: Wahlvorschlag für die Wahl der Schriftführer gemäß § 3 der Geschäftsordnung (pdf: 178 kB)
  11. ↑ bpb.de: Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung Jahresbericht 2002/2003 (PDF)
  12. ↑ ausschusslisten.de: Ausschuss für Verbraucherschutz, Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, Stand 17. Dezember 2002 (PDF)
  13. ↑ ausschusslisten.de: Ausschuss für Menschenrechte und Humanitäre Hilfe, Stand 30. März 2003 (PDF)
  14. ↑ Deutscher Bundestag ENQUETE-KOMMISSION ETHIK UND RECHT DER MODERNEN MEDIZIN (PDF)
  15. ↑ pressrelations.de: Krings ist neuer Sprecher der Jungen Gruppe
  16. ↑ bundestag.de: 8. Sitzung des Deutschen Bundestages on Thu 15 Dec 2005
  17. ↑ pressrelations.de: Wahl der Beisitzer – CDU/CSU-Bundestagsfraktionen wählt Beisitzer für den Fraktionsvorstand
  18. ↑ pressrelations.de: Bennung von Beauftragten – Beauftragte für Drogen, Tierschutz, Kirchen, Behinderte, Verbraucherschutz und Energie
  19. ↑ abgeordnetenwatch.de: Umwelt, Naturschutz und Reaktorsicherheit – Mitglieder des Ausschusses
  20. ↑ welt.de: Junge Abgeordnete wollen Rechte ihrer Generation durchsetzen
  21. ↑ bundestag.de: Parlamentarischer Beirat für nachhaltige Entwicklung
  22. ↑ pressrelations.de: Julia Klöckner neue Obfrau der Arbeitsgruppe
  23. ↑ allgemeine-zeitung.de: Julia Klöckner (CDU) verteidigt Direktmandat im Wahlkreis Bad Kreuznach
  24. ↑ Julia Klöckner hat am 27. Mai 2011 im Büro von Bundestagspräsident Lammert ihre Entlassungsurkunde unterzeichnet. Photograph of Klöckner handing her resignation to Bundestag President, Lammert. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  25. ↑ Julia Klöckner im RZ-Interview: „Grottig schlechter Start für Rot-Grün“. Interview with the newspaper, Rhein-Zeitung. Retrieved 22 October 2013.
  26. ↑ bmelv.de: Julia Klöckner als neue Parlamentarische Staatssekretärin vereidigt
  27. ↑ Neue bundespolitische Weihen für Klöckner? at www.epochtimes.de. Retrieved 21 October 2013
  28. ↑ Peter Bleser ist neuer Parlamentarischer Staatssekretär at www.peter-bleser.de. Retrieved 21 October 2013
  29. ↑ cdu-kv-badkreuznach.de: Kreistagswahlergebnis 2004
  30. ↑ allgemeine-zeitung.de: Die neuen Kreistagsmitglieder – STATISTIK Julia Klöckner ist die Häufelkönigin
  31. ↑ kreisbadkreuznach.de: Mitglieder des Kreistages Legislaturperiode 2009–2014
  32. ↑ ju-rlp.de: BLACK DAS MAGAZIN der JUNGEN UNION RHEINLAND-PFALZ 09/10 • 3. Jahrgang • Sep./Okt. 2006 (PDF)
  33. ↑ faz.net: Die gut vernetzte Weinkönigin, accessed on 17 November 2009
  34. ↑ allgemeine-zeitung.de: Klöckner wird Spitzenkandidatin mit Traumergebnis – Baldauf gibt CDU-Vorsitz ab
  35. ↑ allgemeine-zeitung.de: Julia Klöckner in Mainz zur CDU-Landeschefin gewählt – Merkels Watschn für Beck
  36. ↑ FAZ.NET: Julia Klöckner neue CDU-Landesvorsitzende dated 26 September 2010
  37. ↑ allgemeine-zeitung.de: Rheinland-Pfalz: CDU wählt Klöckner mit Traumergebnis – Grüne: Ziel zweistellig
  38. ↑ wahlen.rlp.de: Landeswahlleiter Rheinland-Pfalz - Endgültiges Ergebnis Landtagswahl 2011 Wahlkreis Bad Kreuznach
  39. ↑ Julia Klöckner neue Landeschefin der CDU Rheinland-Pfalz at www.cdu-rpk.de. Accessed on 27 September 2013.
  40. ↑ karlsruhe2010.cdu.de: Elections at the 23rd party conference of the CDU in Germany
  41. ↑ hannover2012.cdu.de: Elections at the 25th party conference of the CDU in Germany
  42. ↑ caritas-kh.de: Das Prinzip „Stiftung“
  43. ↑ fh-trier.de: Das Kuratorium der FH Trier
  44. ↑ ossig-stiftung.de: Stiftungszweck
  45. ↑ bistummainz.de: Über uns
  46. ↑ bistummainz.de: Julia Klöckner im Kuratorium der Stiftung Weltkirche
  47. ↑ zdk.de: ZdK-Mitgliederliste
  48. ↑ cdurlp.de: Pressemitteilung Nr. 106/2011 – 23.09.2011, accessed on 24 December 2011
  49. ↑ caritas-kh.de: Förderverein der Christlichen Hospizbewegung Bad Kreuznach, ambulanter Dienst e. V.
  50. ↑ mehrgenerationenhaeuser.de: Wer wir sind
  51. ↑ aktion-niere.de: Unsere Schirmfrau
  52. ↑ aktion-deutsche-sprache.de: Ehrenmitgliedschaft für Julia Klöckner
  53. ↑ kinder-in-not-hilfe.de: Die Botschafter der Guten Taten
  54. ↑ markenverband.de: Preisträger für Verbraucherjournalistenpreis 2010 ausgezeichnet
  55. ↑ reisetravel.eu: Das Parlamentarische Weinforum
  56. ↑ Annett Meiritz und Gregor Peter Schmitz (17 April 2014). "EU-Bürgerbegehren: Kulturkampf um den Keim des Lebens" (in German). spiegel.de. Retrieved 2014-04-17.
  57. ↑ Peter Müller and Merlind Theile (November 21, 2012), Let Down By the Chancellor: Merkel's Passive Gender Equality Policy Could Backfire Der Spiegel.
  58. ↑ Government seeks boardroom gender quota only in 2020 Deutsche Welle, April 15, 2014.
  59. ↑ Alexandra Hudson, Andreas Rinke and Hans-Edzard Busemann (May 19, 2014), Germany says Turkey's Erdogan welcome despite mounting criticism Reuters.
  60. ↑ Harriet Torry (May 19, 2014), Berlin Urges Erdogan to Show Restraint at German Rally Wall Street Journal.
  61. ↑ Harriet Torry (September 29, 2014), Images Said to Show Abuse of Asylum Seekers in Germany Wall Street Journal.
  62. ↑ CDU state politician calls for banning burkas in Germany Deutsche Welle, December 1, 2014.
  63. ↑ heise online: Bundespräsidenten-Wahl: Ergebnis per SMS und Twitter verkündet, aufgerufen am 26. Mai 2009
  64. ↑ faz.net: Die Weinkönigin und der Bundeshotte, accessed on 25 July 2009
  65. ↑ heise online: „Twitter-Affäre“ beschäftigt Bundestagspräsidium, accessed on 27 May 2009

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