Frank-Walter Steinmeier

Frank-Walter Steinmeier has been Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs of Germany since 17 December 2013.

He was born on 5 January 1956 in Detmold, in the Lippe District of Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia state. From 1976 to 1982, he read law and political science at the University of Giessen. There, after he had taken his second state law examination, Steinmeier continued his work in academia for several years.

In 1991, Steinmeier took a post in the State Chancellery of the Land Lower Saxony and subsequently, from 1993, headed the office of then Minister-President of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schröder, before being appointed State Secretary and Head of Lower Saxony’s State Chancellery. When Schröder became Federal Chancellor in 1998, he took Steinmeier to the Federal Chancellery in Berlin where Steinmeier took responsibility as Head of the Federal Chancellery.

Following the federal elections in 2005, Chancellor Angela Merkel appointed Steinmeier to head the Foreign Office. From November 2007 Steinmeier additionally served as Vice-Chancellor until his end of term in 2009.

From 2009-2013 he was the Chair of the Social Democrats of Germany (SPD) parliamentary group.

After the 2013 federal elections, Steinmeier was appointed Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs for a second time.

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