Matthias Kurth

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Matthias Kurth (born February 19, 1952 in Heidelberg ) is a German lawyer and politician ( SPD ). From 2001 to February 2012 he was President of the Federal Network Agency for Electricity, Gas, Telecommunications, Post and Railways (previously the regulatory authority for telecommunications and post ). Kurth has been Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the European cable television association Cable Europe since October 2012 .

Education and legal activity

Kurth studied law and economics at the University of Frankfurt from 1971 . In 1976 he passed his first state examination in law and in 1978 his second state examination, both with the grade of “good”. From 1978 he was a judge at the Darmstadt Regional Court . From 1980 to 1994 he worked as a lawyer.

Political career

Kurth joined the SPD in 1968. In the 1970s he held various offices in the party and was elected to the Hessian state parliament in 1978 , to which he was a member until 1994. He was a member of various committees of the state parliament, from 1991 deputy chairman of the SPD parliamentary group and in the presidium of the state parliament. Kurth always ran in the Offenbach Land I constituency , but was mostly elected via the SPD state list. Only in the state elections in Hesse in 1983 was he able to remove the direct mandate from the CDU candidate Claus Demke .

From 1994 to 1999 he was State Secretary in the Hessian Ministry of Economics. Here he came into closer contact for the first time with the regulation of ( telecommunications ) networks. He represented the state of Hesse in the regulatory council for the postal and telecommunications system and was temporarily chairman of the office chiefs conference of the federal and state economic ministers. Kurth was also a member of the Committee of the Regions of the European Union for the State of Hesse, also focusing on networks and telecommunications. He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the German Compensation Bank .

Office in the regulatory authority

In 1999, Kurth moved to COLT Telecom GmbH (today Colt Technology Services GmbH ). In March 2000 he was appointed Vice President of the Regulatory Authority for Telecommunications and Post. On February 9, 2001, at the suggestion of the federal government, in agreement with the opposition, he succeeded the outgoing Klaus-Dieter Scheurle as president of the authority.

His agency created more competition in the former monopoly markets, and his administration is widely recognized as successful. Kurth's contract was extended by five years on March 1, 2007. In the meantime, his authority was entrusted with the regulation of the electricity, gas and railways sectors and on July 13, 2005 renamed the Federal Network Agency .

In spring 2005 he was nominated by the European Union as a candidate for the position of Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU). In the election in November 2006, however, he was defeated by Hamadoun I. Touré .

In the telecommunications sector, Kurth pushed through the development of sustainable competition so that customers can benefit from a wide range of offers. His authority enforced this against the resistance of the established companies and always has the interests of the consumer in mind. So that the telecommunications networks can continue to cope with the constant increase in data, Kurth is committed to the expansion of nationwide broadband networks. In the spring of 2010, it also auctioned new mobile radio frequencies, in particular to promote the nationwide expansion of the new Long Term Evolution (LTE) mobile radio standard.

In the course of the phase-out from nuclear energy (“ nuclear phase-out ”), the authority was also given extensive responsibilities for accelerating the expansion of the high-voltage network. Kurth emphasizes that an early dialogue with the residents can increase their willingness to accept or tolerate measures in their immediate vicinity. As part of the 2011 energy transition, the Federal Network Agency also had to investigate whether the electricity supply could be ensured after eight nuclear power plants had been shut down . At the same time, Kurth regularly emphasized that the energy transition is a task that will take decades to complete. She replied in the negative to the question of whether it was necessary to keep one of the eight nuclear power plants that had been switched off as a cold reserve in a standby mode.

Since the beginning of his tenure, Kurth has been a member of the Independent Regulators Group (IRG) and the European Regulators Group (ERG) for the telecommunications and electronic communications sectors , of which he was Chairman in 2001 and 2009. In 2010 he was deputy chairman of the newly founded body of European regulators for electronic communications (BEREC) and has been the founding chairman of the Independent Regulators Group - Rail (IRG-Rail), the association of European railway regulators , since 2011 . In the field of energy regulation, Kurth is also a member of the Council of European Energy Regulators (CEER) and, until its dissolution on July 1, 2011, of the European Regulators Group for Electricity and Gas (ERGEG).

On March 1, 2012, Kurth resigned from his position as President of the Federal Network Agency. His successor is the previous State Secretary Jochen Homann .

Scientific activities

Kurth was Vice Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Scientific Institute for Infrastructure and Communication Services (WIK), lecturer at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Bonn and Senior Research Fellow at Columbia University in New York.

literature

  • Jochen Lengemann : The Hessen Parliament 1946–1986 . Biographical handbook of the advisory state committee, the state assembly advising the constitution and the Hessian state parliament (1st – 11th electoral period). Ed .: President of the Hessian State Parliament. Insel-Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1986, ISBN 3-458-14330-0 , p. 315 ( hessen.de [PDF; 12.4 MB ]).
  • Jochen Lengemann: MdL Hessen. 1808-1996. Biographical index (= political and parliamentary history of the state of Hesse. Vol. 14 = publications of the Historical Commission for Hesse. Vol. 48, 7). Elwert, Marburg 1996, ISBN 3-7708-1071-6 , p. 232.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Cable Europe: Who's Who ( Memento from February 28, 2014 in the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Do not interfere with consumer rights Interview Deutschlandradio Kultur on August 9, 2010 and We had a wave of scams ( Memento from December 4, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Interview General-Anzeiger from December 29, 2010
  3. ↑ Many white spots soon disappeared Interview Frankfurter Rundschau from May 15, 2010
  4. ↑ Whoever makes the highest bid wins the interview with Deutschlandradio Kultur on April 12, 2010 and the frequency auction brings in over four billion euros contribution Der Spiegel on May 20, 2010
  5. ↑ Government sacrifices nature conservation to network expansion in Der Spiegel from June 17, 2011 and network bottlenecks endanger the energy transition in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung from November 25, 2011
  6. ↑ In Dialog ( Memento from March 6, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Interview Phoenix from March 3, 2012
  7. ↑ Network agency does not want a nuclear power plant as a cold reserve ( memento from October 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Tagesschau from August 30, 2011
  8. ↑ Hurray is shouted too early in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on February 20, 2012
personal data
SURNAME Kurth, Matthias
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German lawyer, politician (SPD), Member of the Bundestag, President of the Federal Network Agency (regulatory authority)
DATE OF BIRTH 19th February 1952
PLACE OF BIRTH Heidelberg , Baden-Wuerttemberg , Germany