Frank Schäffler

Frank Uwe Schäffler (born December 22, 1968 in Schwäbisch Gmünd ) is a German politician ( FDP ) who was best known for his criticism of the “ euro rescue package ” of the black and yellow Merkel government (2009-2013). From 2005 to 2013 he was a member of the German Bundestag . In 2017 he was re-elected to the German Bundestag for the 19th electoral term.

Life and work

After an apprenticeship as an industrial clerk at Hoffmann's Starkefabriken AG in Bad Salzuflen , Schäffler completed a degree in business administration at the universities of applied sciences in Paderborn and Bielefeld , which he completed in 1996 with a degree in business administration (FH). From 1997 to 2010 he was an independent sales representative for MLP AG .

In September 2014 his book Not with our Money! in the Finanzbuch Verlag .

Schäffler lives in Bünde , is married and has a son and a daughter.

Political party

Schäffler was district chairman in Lippe from 1987 to 1990 and chairman of the district association Ostwestfalen-Lippe of the young liberals from 1990 to 1993 .

Since 1987 he has also been a member of the FDP. He was its chairman in the Herford district from 2002 to February 2012 and was replaced by Stephen Paul. Since 2004 he has been a member of the state board of the FDP North Rhine-Westphalia . In May 2011, the federal party congress elected him to the FDP federal executive committee and he took over the chairmanship of the district association Ostwestfalen-Lippe from Gudrun Kopp . In March 2013, Schäffler was not re-elected as a member of the federal executive committee.

Schäffler has been the district chairman of the FDP in the Minden-Lübbecke district since March 2018, succeeding Kai Abruszat .

MP

From 1989 to 2000 Schäffler belonged to the Lippe district council , from 1996 as FDP parliamentary group chairman, and from 1999 to 2005 to the regional assembly of Westphalia-Lippe , here from 2004 as parliamentary group chairman.

From 2005 to 2013 he was a member of the German Bundestag . In this capacity he was a member of the administrative board of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) and, until his resignation in 2010, chairman of the FDP in the finance committee . In the FDP parliamentary group, Schäffler strove to chair the working group on economics and finance as well as the office of financial policy spokesman, but succumbed to Hermann Otto Solms and Volker Wissing .

Schäffler moved into the Bundestag in 2005 and 2009 via the state list of North Rhine-Westphalia (list positions 12 and 11 respectively). In 2013 he ran for position 5 on the list, but lost his mandate because the FDP remained below the five percent hurdle . In 2017 he is running for 10th place on the list after narrowly prevailing against Jasmin Wahl-Schwentker from Bielefeld in the second ballot.

In 2005, 2009 and 2013 Schäffler applied unsuccessfully for a direct mandate in the constituency of Herford - Minden-Lübbecke II (first votes 3.6%, 9.6% and 3.5%).

In 2017 Schäffler ran again and received - this time in the constituency of Minden-Lübbecke I - 7.7% of the first votes. He moved into the Bundestag as the 9th of the North Rhine-Westphalian state list of the FDP.

Think tank

In 2014 Schäffler founded the think tank Prometheus - Das Freiheitsinstitut , whose board of trustees consists of economists Thomas Mayer (chairman) as well as Stefan Kooths and Justus Haucap . Schäffler describes the facility as "politically independent". She should "change the belief in the state in Germany". According to LobbyControl , it advocates “unlimited entrepreneurial freedom” and is skeptical of far-reaching market regulation for consumer , work and environmental protection as a “threat to freedom”. Prometheus is a “partner” of the Atlas Network , sponsored by ExxonMobil , Philip Morris , Charles G. Koch and David H. Koch , which promotes neoliberal organizations worldwide.

In May 2015, a report commissioned by Prometheus and co-authored by member of the Board of Trustees Haucap was published, calling for the privatization of public broadcasting in Germany. The report is part of the Prometheus-operated campaign Compulsory Contribution? No thanks .

Political positions

Basic political location

Schäffler sees himself as a classic liberal . In 2009 he was a speaker at the founding event of the " Libertarian Platform in the FDP", which he did not join. The Süddeutsche Zeitung characterized him as a supporter of " Manchesterism ", an "extreme economic liberalism ". Schäffler rejected this; However, he admired the liberal movement of the 19th century around Eugen Richter or Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch for their policy of civic self-help to improve social conditions such as the development of the cooperative system .

In September 2010, Schäffler and other members of parliament founded the now inactive party group Liberal Awakening , which is based on Friedrich August von Hayek . Among other things, the group called for the anti-discrimination law to be abolished, for contracting states to be excluded from the euro zone and for the emission reduction targets of climate policy to be reviewed. Schäffler was presented in June 2011 with the opinion that the state monopoly on money should be ended.

Euro and EU policy

In March 2010, Schäffler demanded that because of its debt crisis , Greece had to “radically divest from holdings in companies and also sell real estate, for example uninhabited islands”. On May 18, 2010 he resigned as FDP chairman in the finance committee of the Bundestag in protest against the course of the black and yellow federal government in this regard . He voted against aid to Greece and the European stabilization mechanism in the Bundestag .

The publicist Albrecht von Lucke described Schäffler in June 2011 as the center of the “anti-EU position”, which is “still in the minority”. Schäffler is committed to the European Union , but demands compliance with the applicable legal regulations.

At the 62nd FDP federal party conference in May 2011, Schäffler submitted an application against the stabilization of financial aid in the euro area. This was supported by several MPs and the prominent left-liberal FDP member Burkhard Hirsch , but was rejected by two thirds of the delegates.

On September 29, 2011, he voted in the Bundestag as one of 13 “dissenters” in the black-yellow coalition against the continuation of financial aid and the increase in German guarantees from 123 billion euros to 211 billion euros.

On September 9, 2011, Schäffler initiated an internal party membership decision on the position of the FDP on the European Stability Mechanism , which was supported by Burkhard Hirsch and Holger Krahmer . Schäffler collected sufficient signatures from FDP members to carry out the decision, but his application was subject to the decision in December 2011 with 44.2% of the competing application of the federal executive, which reached 54.5%. In addition, the quorum required for validity was missed by a third of all party members. Schäffler then unsuccessfully called on the other parties in the Bundestag to also ask their members about bailing out the euro, since trust in a currency is not just a matter for parliament or party conferences.

On June 29, 2012, Schäffler voted against the ESM in the Bundestag because it binds the Federal Republic of Germany under international law and enables "decisions about German money even against the will of the German legislature". A parliament without “final decision-making authority over budget funds” is powerless, “robbed of its actual task” and an “empty shell”. The shift of budgetary sovereignty to the ESM therefore violated the democratic principle of the Basic Law.

Schäffler was exposed to "pressure and exclusion" because of his resistance to the course of the FDP leadership and his deviation from the discipline within the FDP parliamentary group. As the “worst experience” he described “[t] the collective knocking. In a parliamentary group meeting you signal your approval [...] by knocking on the table. […] [W] hen the chairman talked about me, […] […] everyone knocked. When I replied, nobody knocked. That was really hard, you don't just put it away. ”Nevertheless, before the federal election in 2013, he was given the safe 5th place on the state list in North Rhine-Westphalia (compared to 11th place in 2009 and 12th place in 2005), but missed re-entry because the FDP joined the threshold clause failed.

Climate policy

On the occasion of the publication of the third part of the fifth assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in mid-April 2014, Schäffler described himself on his blog as a climate skeptic .

Memberships and journalistic activities

Schäffler is a member of the Friedrich A. von Hayek Society and a member of the Ludwig Erhard Foundation . As a member of the Bundestag, he was a member of the Europa-Union parliamentary group .

Until 2015 he regularly wrote a column in the magazine strangely free , but ended this because he could no longer endorse the magazine's support for Akif Pirincci . Since then he has been writing the column “Schäffler's Freedom” for the online newspaper and the “ liberal - conservative ” monthly magazine Tichys Insight .

Fonts

• Not with our money! The crisis in our monetary system and the consequences for us all. Finanzbuch Verlag, Munich 2014, ISBN 978-3-89879-652-1 .
• Comments on fair taxation in Germany. In: Philipp Rösler , Christian Lindner (ed.): Freedom: felt - thought - lived. Liberal contributions to a discussion of values. VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2009, ISBN 978-3-531-16387-1 , pp. 247-254.

Web links

• Frank Schäffler's website
• Biography at the German Bundestag
• Frank Schäffler on parliament watch.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Prometheus - The Freedom Institute non-profit GmbH HRB 163110 new entry in the commercial register. Archived from the original on February 4, 2015 ; Retrieved February 3, 2015 . 
2. ↑ Frank Schäffler. Retrieved August 16, 2019 . 
3. ↑ ^{a b} Vita . Frank Schäffler's website, accessed on August 16, 2018.
4. ↑ Mühlenkreis-FDP elects new district board - FDP district association Minden-Lübbecke. Retrieved October 20, 2018 . 
5. ↑ Frank Schäffler (FDP) at Parliament Watch
6. ↑ ^{a b} FDP politician. Frank Schäffler Back to the 19th century . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , September 16, 2011. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
7. ^ The State Returning Officer of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia: Bundestag election 2005. Directory of applicants in North Rhine-Westphalia. (PDF) p. 27 , accessed on February 7, 2017 . 
8. ^ The State Returning Officer of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia: Federal Parliament election 2009 Directory of applicants in North Rhine-Westphalia. (PDF) p. 40 , accessed on February 7, 2017 . 
9. ^ The State Returning Officer of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia: Bundestag election 2013. Directory of applicants in North Rhine-Westphalia. (No longer available online.) P. 43 , archived from the original on February 7, 2017 ; accessed on February 7, 2017 . 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.  
10. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from November 21, 2016 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. 
11. ↑ http://www.nw.de/nachrichten/regionale_politik/20984806_Frank-Schaeffler-haben-nun-doch-auf-der-FDP-Landesliste-zur-Wahl-2017.html
12. ↑ DIE WELT: Election result Minden-Lübbecke I: The result in constituency 134 - Bundestag election 2017 . In: THE WORLD . September 24, 2017 ( online [accessed September 25, 2017]).
13. ↑ State list FDP NRW. Retrieved September 25, 2017 . 
14. ↑ ^{a b} "Prometheus - The Freedom Institute": A think tank against belief in the state . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . September 1, 2014, ISSN  0174-4909 ( online [accessed February 7, 2017]).
15. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from April 17, 2015 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. Prometheus - The Freedom Institute , accessed on April 21, 2015. 
16. ↑ ^{a b} Prometheus - Lobbypedia. Retrieved on February 7, 2017 (German (Sie-Salutation)). 
17. ^ Atlas Network - Partners - Europe & Central Asia. Atlas Network, accessed August 9, 2020 . 
18. ^ "Compulsory contribution": reviewers want ARD and ZDF to privatize - WELT. Retrieved February 7, 2017 . 
19. ^ Justus Haucap, Christiane Kehder, Ina Loebert: A liberal broadcasting order for the future. An economic study. An expert opinion on behalf of PROMETHEUS - Das Freiheitsinstitut gGmbH. (PDF) June 2015, accessed February 7, 2017 . 
20. ↑ compulsory contribution? No thanks. Retrieved February 7, 2017 . 
21. ↑ Various: Frank Schäffler: State monopoly on money must fall! In: liberaler-aufbruch.net. Liberal Awakening, October 29, 2011, accessed January 31, 2012 . 
22. ↑ Ronald glasses: Federal meeting of the libertarian platform in the FDP. In: beta.ef-magazin.de. ef-Magazin, May 3, 2009, accessed on August 16, 2019 . 
23. ^ Euro rebel Schäffler. "I am not a dream" . In: ntv.de , September 21, 2011. Retrieved October 12, 2011.
24. ↑ "Liberal Awakening": Westerwelle critics woo the base. In: Spiegel Online. September 25, 2010, accessed February 7, 2017 . 
25. ↑ Various: Frank Schäffler: State monopoly on money must fall! In: www.goldseiten.de. Johannes Müller, June 7, 2011, accessed June 12, 2011 . 
26. ↑ Weserkurier of March 4, 2010: FDP: Greeks should sell their islands , online at weser-kurier.de
27. ↑ Der Spiegel from May 18, 2010: FDP finance chairman Schäffler throws down , online at spiegel.de
28. ^ Albrecht von Lucke: Dangerously precarious. In: Blätter für German and international politics , 6/2011, pp. 5–8
29. ↑ The FDP stands on the brink. That makes you free, online at frank-schaeffler.de ( Memento from January 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
30. ↑ Application on Frank Schäffler's website ( Memento from June 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
31. ^ Die Welt from May 16, 2011: Small Revolution in Rostock , online at welt.de
32. ↑ Euro deviants anger the party giants , bundestag.de
33. ↑ Spiegel Online from September 9, 2011: 'FDP membership decision should stop the rescue package', FDP membership decision should stop the rescue package.
34. ↑ Euro rescue package: FDP rebels force explosive base vote - manager magazin . In: manager magazin . ( Online [accessed February 7, 2017]).
35. ^ Narrow victory of the FDP executive committee over euro skeptics . In: FAZ , December 16, 2011. Retrieved December 16, 2011.
36. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from January 8, 2012 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: Junge Freiheit , December 16, 2011. Retrieved December 19, 2011. 
37. ↑ "The Chancellor did not understand the crisis". In: welt.de . July 3, 2012, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
38. ↑ Linda Hinz: FDP rebel Schäffler on Bosbach's euro revolt: “In the Bundestag only uniformity”. Ex-MP describes pressure and exclusion. February 24, 2015, accessed February 7, 2017 . 
39. ↑ I am a climate skeptic! Blog entry from April 17, 2014 on frank-schaeffler.de. Retrieved June 30, 2014.
40. ↑ No tolerance of intolerance blog entry from November 18, 2015 on rolandtichy.de. Retrieved November 18, 2015.
41. ↑ Schäffler's Freedom Archive - Tichy's insight. In: Tichy's insight. Retrieved September 29, 2016 .