Hannelore Kraft

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Hannelore Kraft, 2017
Signature of Hannelore Kraft

Hannelore Kraft , b. Külzhammer (born June 12, 1961 in Mülheim an der Ruhr ) is a German politician ( SPD ). From July 14, 2010 to June 27, 2017, she was the first woman and tenth person in this office to be Prime Minister of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia . From 2007 Kraft was state chairwoman of the SPD North Rhine-Westphalia and from 2009 one of the six deputy federal chairmen of the SPD. After the lost state election in North Rhine-Westphalia on May 14, 2017 , she resigned from both offices .

Origin, professional career and private life

Hannelore Kraft and her older sister Angelika grew up as Catholic working-class children , the father was a traffic foreman (tram driver) and the mother a conductor in Mülheim an der Ruhr in the Dümpten district . After her high school at the high school Broich in Mülheim an der Ruhr in 1980 graduated force initially trained as a bank clerk at Dresdner Bank in Mönchengladbach . In 1982 she enrolled at the University of Duisburg to study economics . From 1986 to 1987 she studied at King's College London . In 1989 she completed her studies in Duisburg with a degree in business administration .

From 1989 to 2001 she worked as a management consultant and project manager at the semi-state consultancy Center for Innovation and Technology (ZENIT GmbH) in Mülheim and as head of the Euro Info Center network of the European Commission .

Kraft has been legally married to the electrician Udo Kraft since 1992; the two have a grown son. She converted from the Catholic to the Protestant Church. In October 2012, Kraft and her husband were religiously married in Namibia . She said in 2014 that she believed in one God.

In 2017 Hannelore Kraft took over the position of shareholder representative on the supervisory board of the hard coal group RAG .

Political career

Member of the state parliament in North Rhine-Westphalia (since 2000)

Hannelore Kraft became a member of the SPD in 1994. She has been a member of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia since June 2, 2000 . It held there from 2000 2005 bis the constituency  74 (Mülheim II - Eating  VII), since 2005, she represents the constituency 64 ( Muelheim I ).

State Minister in North Rhine-Westphalia (2001 to 2005)

On April 24, 2001, she was in place of Detlev Samland of Wolfgang Clement to the Minister for Federal and European Affairs appointed ( cabinet Clement II ). Under Prime Minister Steinbrück , she was Minister for Science and Research from November 12, 2002 to June 24, 2005 .

Opposition politician in North Rhine-Westphalia (2005 to 2010)

After the SPD's defeat in the state elections on May 22, 2005 , Kraft was elected chairwoman of the SPD parliamentary group on May 31, 2005 with 95.7% of the votes cast as the successor to Edgar Moron .

When Rüttger's government took office on June 22, 2005, Kraft also took over the post of opposition leader in the North Rhine-Westphalian state parliament.

After Jochen Dieckmann's resignation as SPD state chairman on December 11, 2006, Kraft was elected as the new state chairperson on January 20, 2007 at a state party conference in Bochum .

On November 13, 2009, shortly after the 2009 Bundestag election , Kraft was elected one of the four federal deputy chairmen of the new party leader Sigmar Gabriel at the SPD's federal party conference . It received the best result with 90%. In February 2010 she was confirmed as state chairman at a state party conference and was elected almost unanimously to number one on the state list for the state elections on May 9, 2010 ; so she was the top candidate of the SPD for the office of Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia (2010 to 2017)

NRW state election 2010

Hannelore Kraft (right) and Sylvia Löhrmann (left) signing the red-green coalition agreement in July 2010

The SPD won 67 seats in the state elections in North Rhine-Westphalia on May 9, 2010 , to which Kraft ran as the top SPD candidate and challenged Prime Minister Jürgen Rüttgers ( CDU ). It lost less than the CDU, but with 34.5% also received fewer votes than in the previous elections. The red-green coalition favored by Kraft , with a total of 90 seats, missed an absolute majority in the state parliament for a mandate . Kraft then conducted exploratory talks with all the parties represented in the newly elected state parliament to form a government, but without success.

Kraft then announced that it would operate a policy change out of parliament and thus keep the Rüttger government in office. A few days later she declared that she would be elected Prime Minister of a red-green minority government . On July 14, 2010, she was elected into office in the second ballot with 80 votes against and 11 abstentions with 90 votes. This corresponded to the votes of red-green, black-yellow and the left in the state parliament. A simple majority was sufficient in the second ballot. The ministers of the Kraft I cabinet were appointed and sworn in on July 15, 2010. The formation of the government was thus completed 67 days after the state elections.

From November 1, 2010 to October 31, 2011, she was President of the Federal Council in rotation . She was the first woman in the history of the Federal Council to hold this office.

NRW state election 2012

Hannelore Kraft (left) and Sylvia Löhrmann (right) signing the red-green coalition agreement in June 2012

On March 14, 2012, the state parliament decided unanimously to dissolve itself; early elections were held on May 13, 2012 . In the election on May 13, 2012, the SPD received the most votes with 39.1% and now had an absolute majority of the seats in the new Düsseldorf state parliament with the Greens . On June 20, 2012, Hannelore Kraft was re-elected Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia with 137 votes in the first ballot. That is nine votes more than the red-green coalition has elected. At the state party conference of the SPD in Münster in September 2012, Kraft was re-elected almost unanimously as party leader in North Rhine-Westphalia. She formed the Kraft II cabinet .

NRW state elections 2017 and withdrawal as a top politician

At an SPD state party conference in Bochum in September 2016, the delegates confirmed Hannelore Kraft with 98.45 percent of the votes in office. Out of 452 valid votes, 445 votes in favor were in favor, four against and three abstained. In 2014, Kraft received 95.2 percent of the delegate's votes. Hannelore Kraft was to lead the NRW-SPD for two more years in her sixth term, which also included the state election on May 14, 2017 .

In this election, the SPD received fewer votes than the CDU (31.2 to 33.0%); On the evening of the election, Kraft announced her resignation from her most important party offices, including as SPD state chairwoman and one of the SPD deputy federal chairmen. She also announced that after the election of her successor in the office of Prime Minister she would only be active as a simple member of the state parliament for her home town of Mülheim an der Ruhr , and largely withdrew from the public. In June 2017, she had her profiles on Facebook and Twitter deleted. She also had the films from her controversial video blog NRW-VLog removed from YouTube .

Her term of office as Prime Minister ended on June 27, 2017 with the election of Armin Laschet as her successor.

At the beginning of 2020, Kraft announced that it would no longer run in the next state election.

State politics as Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia

Hannelore Kraft on May 9, 2012 in Hamm

State budget

When she assumed office as Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia in 2010, Kraft established a policy of “preventive social policy”. It dealt with the consolidation of public finances as subordinate to the goal of saving funds in the long term by spending on "social prevention", for example in residential care, with Hartz IV and in prison .

The state budgets submitted by their government for 2010, 2011 and 2012 were judged by the state constitutional court to be unconstitutional and some of them were declared null and void. In March 2011, Michael Bertrams , President of the State Constitutional Court, described the provisions of the 2010 supplementary budget as not being in conformity with the constitution because the new debt was higher than the level of investment. Due to a cyclical increase in tax revenue, the actual new debt in 2011 was below the limit set by the state constitution .

The rejection of the 2012 draft budget by the majority of members of the state parliament led to the early state elections on May 13, 2012 and to a new red-green state government under Hannelore Kraft ( Kraft II cabinet ).

From 2014, the strengthening of poorer municipalities should be achieved through municipal financial equalization ( Kommunalsoli ). The state constitutional court ruled this to be legal.

Educational policy

In her election manifesto for the 2010 election, Kraft provided for a comprehensive revision of education policy ; she wanted to abolish the tripartite school system and replace it with a longer joint primary school and the community school based on it . It should be left to the schools and parents to decide whether the Abitur is achieved after eight or nine years. Kindergarten fees should be abolished. Tuition fees at the country's universities have been abolished.

Labor market policy

In 2011, the Landtag under Hannelore Kraft passed an amendment to the State Personnel Representation Act . With this, the employee participation in the public service was newly regulated.

In 2012, the Tariftreuegesetz , which was overturned by the CDU and FDP in 2006 , which links the award of public contracts to compliance with collective agreements, came into force again.

Energy policy

In a state parliament debate in September 2012, Kraft stated that by 2025 at least 30 percent of the electricity generated in North Rhine-Westphalia should be generated from renewable energies. At the same time, the industrial focus of the economy is to be retained.

During the transition phase , the mining of domestic coal, in particular, should continue to be promoted and the construction of coal-fired power plants should continue to be possible on the basis of applicable laws. She wanted to get out of nuclear energy entirely .

As part of the coalition negotiations after the 2013 federal election, she said in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung that maintaining jobs in domestic industry must take priority over the energy transition.

Federal politics

Hannelore Kraft in the 2014 European election campaign

After the federal elections in 2009, Hannelore Kraft moved up to the SPD executive committee as deputy party leader alongside Andrea Nahles , Olaf Scholz , Manuela Schwesig and Klaus Wowereit . In this function, she took part in the coalition negotiations with the CDU in 2013 . In this context, a loud argument with Alexander Dobrindt about budgetary policy became public .

Among other things, Hannelore Kraft campaigned for the introduction of a nationwide statutory minimum wage . Through the Bundesrat , together with other state governments, it wanted to prevent the extension of the operating times of nuclear power plants that was decided by the black and yellow federal government and passed by the Bundestag in autumn 2010. In addition, she considered the proposed cuts in wage and income tax to be impossible to finance due to the deficit in the federal budget. Kraft also refused to agree to the introduction of a flat rate per capita in statutory health insurance, which came into force in 2011 as part of the health reform of the black and yellow federal government . Instead, she spoke out in favor of introducing citizens' insurance .

Kraft, like Guido Westerwelle before , called for “non-profit jobs” for unemployment benefit II recipients so that a “common good-oriented labor market” could arise. This would not require any additional costs for the state and is also necessary since structural unemployment prevails. However, Kraft emphasized that, unlike Westerwelle, she did not want any compulsory work, but instead relied on the voluntary commitment of the long-term unemployed.

Financially troubled municipalities are to receive aid from the state and also be able to apply for funds from the " Aufbau Ost " program , which is to be converted into an all-German compensation fund . Kraft initially rejected the sale of all state holdings in the Westdeutsche Landesbank , which had been ailing since the financial crisis in 2007 and its structure was objected to by the European Union. WestLB was wound up in 2012.

Hannelore Kraft was widely reported in the media as a possible SPD chancellor candidate for the 2017 federal election. She contradicted these reports on November 29, 2013 in Düsseldorf. Before the SPD parliamentary group, Kraft confirmed that she would "(...) never, never run as candidate for chancellor".

Debate about your résumé

The journalist David Schraven pointed out in his blog ruhrbarone.de on June 16, 2009 that from 2006 in Kraft's official curriculum vitae, he worked as a management consultant for the Mülheim Center for Innovation and Technology ( Zenit GmbH ) from 1989 to 2001 has been deleted. Schraven also speculated about possible connections with a funding scandal from 2007 in which Zenit GmbH was involved. Kraft was therefore accused of manipulating the résumé. She justified herself by saying that she saw herself as being "illegally" linked to the funding scandal. On June 29, 2009 Kraft tried in vain to persuade Schraven to withdraw his statement by means of a declaration of cease and desist. Later, the CDU in North Rhine-Westphalia tried to take advantage of the controversy in the 2009 local election campaign with a postcard campaign that Hannelore Kraft assumed was directly involved in the scandal. This was ultimately forbidden by the Cologne Regional Court as an inadmissible assertion under threat of punishment.

Awards

Web links

Commons : Hannelore Kraft  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Hannelore Kraft resigns from SPD offices . The mirror . May 14, 2017. Retrieved May 15, 2017.
  2. ↑ For nuts . The mirror. April 30, 2012. Retrieved June 15, 2015.
  3. ↑ Hannelore Kraft, MdL . NRWSPD. Archived from the original on October 7, 2012. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  4. ↑ www.zenit.de
  5. ↑ ABOUT THE PERSON: Hannelore Kraft, MdL. In: hannelore-kraft.de. March 3, 2006, archived from the original on March 3, 2006 ; Retrieved June 30, 2009 .
  6. ↑ Reiner Burger , Ja and again Ja , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Magazin October 2015, p. 72.
  7. ↑ Wedding after 20 years of marriage . Rheinische Post. October 10, 2012. Retrieved October 15, 2012.
  8. ↑ “My father directs my life from above” . Image. December 19, 2014. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
  9. ↑ Hannelore Kraft says yes again - to her husband . Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung. October 10, 2012. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
  10. ↑ Hannelore Kraft: I believe in a God who trusts us to do something. . chrismon.de. October 2014. Retrieved December 23, 2014.
  11. ↑ An overview of the members of the RAG Aktiengesellschaft supervisory board
  12. ^ Hannelore Kraft at the North Rhine-Westphalia state parliament
  13. ↑ SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia celebrates its top candidate Kraft . The world. February 26, 2010. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  14. ↑ Kraft rejects new elections in NRW . Mirror online. June 12, 2010. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  15. ↑ Kraft announces first legislative initiatives in North Rhine-Westphalia . Mirror online. June 14, 2010. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  16. ↑ Red-Green plans minority government in NRW . Mirror online. June 17, 2010. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  17. ↑ Länderkammer: Kraft will be President of the Federal Council today . www.derwesten.de. October 15, 2010. Retrieved October 15, 2010.
  18. ↑ Landtag resolves new elections in NRW . TIME online. March 14, 2012. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  19. ↑ 137 votes for Hannelore Kraft . Rheinische Post. June 20, 2012. Archived from the original on September 6, 2012. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  20. ↑ Hannelore Kraft confirmed as SPD leader in NRW with a good 99 percent . Time online. September 30, 2012. Archived from the original on December 3, 2013. Retrieved on October 1, 2012.
  21. ↑ Hannelore Kraft re-elected as SPD leader in NRW with strong results . Rheinische Post . September 25, 2016. Retrieved May 14, 2017.
  22. ↑ Hannelore Kraft on the outcome of the election. 14 May 2017
  23. ↑ wdr.de June 12, 2017: Who actually rules us at the moment
  24. ↑ rp-online.de June 9, 2017: Hannelore Kraft is deleted from the Internet
  25. ↑ bild.de June 9, 2017: Hannelore Kraft is deleted from the Internet
  26. ↑ wdr.de February 1, 2016: The unvarnished truth
  27. ↑ FAZ.net February 4, 2020: Like from another, better time
  28. ↑ Investing despite empty coffers ( memento from October 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) wdr.de, March 25, 2011.
  29. ↑ see Article 83
  30. ↑ Constitutional judges overturn the red-green budget. Spiegel Online , March 15, 2011
  31. ↑ Funding shares and model calculation of the 2014 solidarity surcharge ( Memento from December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ), Ministry of the Interior and Local Affairs of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, accessed on November 30, 2013.
  32. ↑ Westdeutsche Zeitung: Constitutional Court decides: The communal solos are legal. August 30, 2016. Retrieved March 20, 2017 .
  33. ↑ NRW abolishes tuition fees again. Zeit Online , August 31, 2010.
  34. ↑ Hannelore Kraft is committed to the energy transition. handelsblatt.de, September 12, 2012.
  35. ↑ Power slows down the energy transition. sueddeutsche.de, October 26, 2013.
  36. ↑ Karl Doemens: Hannelore Kraft bursts the collar Kölner Stadtanzeiger, October 15, 2013
  37. ↑ Politicians and trade unionists want stricter financial supervision . Rheinische Post. May 1, 2010. Archived from the original on May 4, 2010. Retrieved on May 29, 2012.
  38. ↑ Gabriel offers CDU alliance against FDP . Rheinische Post. March 19, 2010. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  39. ^ Reform Commission: Citizens' insurance instead of flat-rate per capita . German Trade Union Confederation. December 13, 2010. Retrieved May 29, 2012.
  40. ↑ Citizens' insurance - the “superior alternative” . SPD. December 13, 2010. Archived from the original on October 17, 2013. Retrieved October 1, 2012.
  41. ↑ Westerwelle wants Hartz IV recipients to shovel snow . Time online. February 21, 2010. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  42. ↑ SPD vice demands charitable use of Hartz IV recipients . Financial Times Germany. March 6, 2010. Archived from the original on March 8, 2010. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  43. ↑ "Voluntary work": Kraft defends job plan . n-tv. March 8, 2010. Retrieved October 4, 2012.
  44. ^ Wibke Busch: The drumbeat of Düsseldorf . Article from November 29, 2013 in the portal wz-newsline.de , accessed on November 30, 2013
  45. ↑ SPD top woman Hannelore Kraft: "I will never run as a candidate for chancellor" . Article from November 29, 2013 in the portal spiegel.de , accessed on November 30, 2013
  46. ↑ How an SPD leader changes its history . ruhr barons. June 16, 2009. Retrieved July 2, 2014.
  47. ↑ Allegedly embellished résumé: SPD politician angered blogosphere . Mirror online. June 29, 2009. Retrieved July 2, 2014.
  48. ↑ SPD state chief in North Rhine-Westphalia: Kraft achieves partial success in court . Mirror online. July 15, 2009. Retrieved August 18, 2016.
  49. ↑ https://www.awo-ww.de/node/2408
  50. ↑ Awarding of the medal to the Prime Minister on bundespraesident.de, December 13, 2018
  51. ↑ NRWSPDqueer honors Hannelore Kraft with the badge of honor on frankmueller.org, September 8, 2019
personal data
SURNAME Kraft, Hannelore
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Külzhammer, Hannelore (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (SPD), MdL
DATE OF BIRTH June 12, 1961
PLACE OF BIRTH Mülheim an der Ruhr