Gabriel Sigmar is a German politician who was born on September 12, 1959 in the Lower Saxon city of Goslar. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), to which the German federal president also currently belongs.
In 1998, Sigmar was appointed chairman of the SPD parliamentary faction in the Landtag of Lower Saxony, and a year later he took over as prime minister of this land. After losing to Christian Wulff in the 2003 elections, he returned to the position of chairman of the SPD parliamentary group and remained in it until being elected to the Bundestag in 2005.
On November 22 of the same year, he became the new federal minister for the environment in Angela Merkel's coalition government. After the 2009 parliamentary elections, the coalition ceased to exist, and Gabriel Sigmar was elected chairman of his party, which had just suffered a crushing defeat. Four years later, in December 2013, a new coalition was formed, where Gabriel took the post of vice- chancellor and federal minister of economics andEnergy.
Biography
Sigmar Gabriel, whose far-right father was born in 1959 in Goslar. Already in 1976, he began working in a youth organization called the Union of Socialist Youth of Germany "Falcons" (SJD). Three years later, he graduated from the gymnasium in Goslar and was drafted into the Bundeswehr, where he served the required two years. After military service, in 1982, Gabriel entered the University of Göttingen, where he graduated in political science, sociology and German philology.
From 1983 he started working in adult education for ÖTV and IG Metall. In 1987, Gabriel Sigmar passed the first state exam and spent two years doing an internship at the Goslar Gymnasium. At the end of this internship (the so-called referendariat), he passed the second state exam and received a diploma.
He resigned his trade union positions and a year later began teaching at the Federation of National Universities of Lower Saxony, where he worked until 1990.
Private life
Divorced from his first wife and married a second time in 2012, has two daughters. My wife's name is Anke and she works as a dentist in her own office.
The names of the daughters are Saskia and Marie. Saskia, a daughter from her first marriage, is already an adult and openly criticizes her father. Marie is still in kindergarten.
Career inSPD and affiliates of this party
In 1976, Sigmar Gabriel became a member of the socialist youth organization Falcons, and only a year later joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). He was chairman of the Sokolov branch in the city of Goslar and was a member of the presidium of the organization in the city district of Braunschweig, where he served as secretary and oversaw anti-war actions. Later, Gabriel became the head of this Sokolov division. In 1979 he joined the civil servants' union ÖTV.
In 1999 he was elected a member of the federal executive committee of the SPD, and in 2003 he was appointed executive spokesman for pop culture, vice-chairman of the party in Lower Saxony and chairman in Braunschweig. Resigned from the federal executive committee two years later.
On October 5, 2009, at a party meeting, 77.7% of the committee members voted for Gabriel's candidacy for the post of federal chairman of the party. About a month later, on 13 November, Sigmar Gabriel took over the leadership of the SPD; this time, 94.2% of the delegates voted for him.
November 15, 2009, he announced the need to restore the progressive we alth tax.
Local and regional
Gabriel Sigmar received his first mandate in 1987, when he was elected to the Goslar district parliament. Three years later, he was elected to the Lower Saxony Landtag, and in 1991 was elected to the city council of the city of Goslar.
In 1994 Gabriel was appointedspokesman for internal affairs of the SPD parliamentary group in the regional parliament, and in 1997 became deputy chairman of the faction. The following year, he left the district legislature and took over as chairman of the SPD faction in the Landtag, where the party won an absolute majority of 83 out of 157 seats. At the same time, he relinquished his mandate on the City Council.
In the 2003 regional elections, the incumbent Prime Minister Sigmar Gabriel lost with a crushing score to Christian Wulff: the result of the SPD was 33.5% of the vote, compared to 48% in the last election, while the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) made a breakthrough, receiving 48.3% of the vote against 36% five years earlier. Wulf quickly formed the so-called black-and-yellow coalition, and on March 4, Gabriel handed over power to him.
Despite the defeat, he again took the post of chairman of the SPD parliamentary faction and became the leader of the opposition in the regional government of Christian Wulff. Gabriel stepped down from this post in 2005.
As Federal Minister for the Environment
In the early federal elections on September 18, 2005, Sigmar Gabriel was elected to the Bundestag from the Salzgitter-Wolfenbüttel district in Lower Saxony, gaining 52.3% of the vote. That same year, on November 22, he was appointed as the new federal minister for the environment in the coalitiongovernment led by Angela Merkel. Gabriel is the first Social Democrat to be appointed to the position since its inception in 1986.
As minister, he continued the line of his predecessor, Jürgen Trittin, supporting the decision to phase out nuclear power taken by Gerhard Schroeder's "red-green" coalition in 2001. Gabriel used the German presidency of the European Union and the G8 in 2007 to promote environmental issues internationally. Together with Frank-W alter Steinmeier, he is a supporter of the New Deal environmental program.
Opposition leader
In the parliamentary elections on September 27, 2009, Gabriel was again elected as a deputy, gaining 44.9% of the vote in his constituency. Exactly one month later, he lost his portfolio to Norbert Röttgen in connection with the formation of the black-and-yellow coalition. Together with Steinmeier, chairman of the SPD faction in the Bundestag, he takes on the duties of head of the opposition in the new cabinet of Angela Merkel. In September 2012, at the suggestion of former Finance Minister Peer Steinbrück, he becomes the SPD candidate for chancellor, but loses.
Vice Chancellor
In the federal elections of September 22, 2013, the SPD received only 25.7% of the vote, while the Christian Democrats fell just short of an absolute majority, gaining 41.5%. The two factions began negotiations to form a "grand coalition"; decision on this matter by the chairman of the SPDpresented to the members of his party for approval. On December 17, 2013, after more than 75% voted for him, Sigmar Gabriel was appointed Vice Chancellor and Federal Minister of Economy and Energy.
Interesting facts
During a press conference on February 14, 2014, Federal Minister of Agriculture Hans-Peter Friedrich announced his resignation. A few hours earlier, he admitted that in October 2013, while in office as Federal Minister of the Interior, he passed information to Sigmar Gabriel related to the investigation of the Lower Saxon MP Sebastian Edati, caught in crimes related to child pornography. Because of this, German Economy Minister Sigmar Gabriel lost Angela Merkel's trust.
The future of German politics
Controversy over Gabriel's future as SPD leader flared up after he received just 74% in the party's confidence vote in December 2015, the lowest result for an SPD leader in 20 years. Nevertheless, he is considered as the main candidate in the 2017 federal election, which is due to the lack of obvious competitors and the unwillingness of the main party officials to participate in a losing business. In May 2016, German Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel called on other SPD leaders to put forward their candidacies so that party members can make their choice.
