Bjorn Semrau

Björn Semrau (2013)

Björn Niklas Semrau (born December 2, 1978 in Seeheim-Jugenheim near Darmstadt) is a German political scientist and politician of the Pirate Party Germany . In 2006 he was a founding member of the Pirate Party Germany, and from December 2013 to March 2014 political director. Semrau was elected as the new political director at the twelfth federal party conference of the Pirate Party in Bremen on December 1, 2013. His predecessor in office Katharina Nocun had not run for office. His successor in office was Kristos Thingilouthis .

Private

General

Semrau was born in 1978 as the son of the business graduate Klaus Karl Semrau and the teacher Ingrid Semrau, b. Leißler born in Seeheim-Jugenheim. He has two older siblings. He grew up in Darmstadt, where he also attended high school. After graduating from high school in 1998 at the Marienhöhe seminar in Darmstadt, Semrau did his community service in the mobile social aid service at the Arbeiter-Samariter-Bund eV.

Since 2012 he has been with the nurse Michaela Semrau, geb. Pettavino married. The couple have a son.

Education

In 1999 he began studying business informatics at the Technical University of Darmstadt, which he dropped out after five semesters to study economics at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz. There he also attended seminars in political science out of personal interest , which appealed to him very much. In 2002 he took part in a seminar "Europe on the way to a new world order" by the Mainz honorary professor Hans-Dietrich Genscher and in this context also met the guest speaker and guest of honor Genscher Michail Gorbatschow . This experience politicized Semrau, and in 2003 he moved back to Darmstadt to the Technical University to take up a degree in political science. After a semester abroad at the University of Wales , he changed the form of study again in 2005 in order to be able to obtain a master's degree. During the early days of his studies, he focused, among other things, on party research, especially party founding. With the co-founding of the Pirate Party Germany, he was able to support the scientific theory in practice. Later his focus shifted to international relations, diplomacy and European politics. Semrau successfully completed his Magister Artium in Political Science in March 2017.

Volunteering

In addition to his political activities, Björn Semrau is also active in various European or foreign policy associations, as well as in a non-profit association. He is involved in the Bringing Europeans Together Association eV (BETA), participates in various European policy simulations of the Model European Union (MEU) and is a member of the Young Professionals in Foreign Policy. He is also an active member of the non-profit association of the Gilde der Drachenreiter eV

Pirate Party Germany

founding

Björn Semrau has been a founding member of the party since September 2006. At the founding meeting he was narrowly defeated in the election for the first two assessors. Within the party, Semrau is also known as "Nick" (nickname) Phobos. Politically, Semrau decrees in the left-liberal area.

Formation of associations and candidacies

In 2007 he co-founded the Hessian regional association and was a member of its first board. He is a member of the triply united district association of the regions Odenwald / Darmstadt-Dieburg / Darmstadt (OwDiDa). He co-founded the Darmstadt Association in 2009 and was a member of the first board as an assessor. Since then, Semrau has held a variety of offices and functions in the party. For example, he came fourth on the state list of the Hessian state association of the party for the 2013 federal election. He was also put up as a direct candidate in his constituency of Darmstadt and won 2.8% of the first votes cast. He was both vice-chairman, as well as chairman of the district association and finally became the political director of the federal party for a short time.

In 2009 he founded the working group for foreign and security policy (AG Foreign Policy) with Matthias Schmidt, which he headed for several years as coordinator. The AG Foreign Policy, together with 42 eV, is one of the initiators of the Pirate Security Conference (PSC), which has been taking place in Munich since 2015 in the run-up to the renowned Munich Security Conference (MSC). For the European elections in 2019 he was a candidate for the Pirate Party Germany.

At the federal party conference of the Pirate Party in 2019 in Bad Homburg vor der Höhe, he ran again as political manager, where he was narrowly defeated by incumbent Daniel Mönch .

Political director and resignation

From 2011 onward, there were more wing clashes within the party, which severely damaged the party. As part of his candidacy for the federal executive committee, he had announced that he would on the one hand devote himself to the party’s motivation and agreement after the Bundestag election, which was perceived as a “damper”, and on the other hand to orientate it thematically to the outside world along the program developed within the party. However, he resigned in March 2014 together with Secretary General Stephanie Schmiedke and Treasurer Stefan Bartels for strategic reasons, as they did not want to support the radical course of the rest of the party leadership at that time and the consequences that resulted from it. In doing so, they left the federal executive committee unable to act, which was then forced to host a party congress in Halle / Saale. Semrau saw his resignation not as a withdrawal, but as a "declaration of war", since the party is in danger of being taken over by the wing of left-wing extremist members. At the extraordinary 14th federal party conference in Halle / Salle, this wing suffered a devastating defeat, whereupon most of its supporters left the party. The left-liberal orientation of the party was thus retained. While Schmidke and Bartels successfully ran for re-election to the federal executive committee, Semrau declined to stand for candidacy and now declared that he wanted to concentrate on completing his studies.

Issue commissioning within the Pirate Party Germany

In May 2015, Semrau took on a new role and became the first topic officer for foreign and security policy of the Pirate Party. As part of this task, he developed the party's foreign policy program together with the Foreign Policy Working Group, advised the Executive Board on matters relevant to foreign policy and published press releases and articles with a focus on foreign and security policy. He held this assignment until January 2019. His successor in the assignment is Alexander Kohler , who is also a member of the Foreign Policy Working Group.

Candidate for the 2019 European elections

With his experience as a candidate in a Bundestag election and two local elections, as well as a number of office candidates in the local, state and federal level of the Pirate Party Germany, Björn Semrau applied for the European election at the assembly meeting of the Pirate Party in Sömmerda (Thuringia) in June 2018 Parliament for a place on the federal list in May 2019. He came fourth. In his candidacy, Semrau primarily focuses on foreign policy, European policy, defense and development.

Web links

Commons : Björn Semrau  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Profile of Björn Semrau in the Wiki of the Pirate Party Germany

Individual evidence

1. ^ News from the Tagesschau about his resignation ( memento of March 17, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), accessed on March 17, 2014
2. ↑ Message about the election on the website of the Pirate Party ( memento of the original from December 5, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 4, 2013 
3. ↑ Results for constituency 186 - Darmstadt on the website of the Federal Returning Officer ( memento of the original from January 10, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed December 4, 2013  
4. ↑ Pirate Party Germany: EU CANDIDATES 2019 -8 TOP PIRATES, 1 DIRECTION: BRUSSELS , accessed on February 8, 2019
5. ↑ Federal Party 2019.2 / candidacy - Piratenwiki. Retrieved June 12, 2020 . 
6. ↑ Pirate Party Germany: Federal Party Congress Bad Homburg: Pirate Party elects new federal board. In: press portal. Retrieved June 12, 2020 . 
7. ↑ Announcement of the candidacy on Semrau's homepage , accessed on December 4, 2013
8. ↑ Declaration of resignation from March 16, 2014 on the portal of the Federal Board of the Pirate Party Germany, accessed on March 20, 2014
9. ^ Message from March 17, 2014 on Golem.de , accessed on March 20, 2014
10. ↑ Message from March 19, 2014 ( Memento of the original from March 20, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. in the Darmstädter Echo , accessed on March 20, 2014 
11. ↑ Quadruple seats in the EU Parliament - polls show an increase in votes for pirates ›Pirate Party Germany. Retrieved on February 22, 2019 (German). 
12. ↑ EU Candidates 2019 ›Pirate Party Germany. Retrieved on February 22, 2019 (German).