Michael Billen

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Michael Billen (2014)

Michael Billen (born October 4, 1955 in Trier ; † January 4, 2022 ) was a German politician ( CDU ) and a member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament .

Life and work

His father was the CDU politician Adolf Billen . Post-high school Billen was trained and in 1976 his master's certificate, he was a professional agriculturalist in Kaschenbach , with 62 inhabitants the smallest place of südeifel .

Billen was married, had four children and was chairman of the supervisory board of Flugplatz Bitburg GmbH. He died on January 4, 2022 of complications from leukemia .

Political party

At 17 he joined the Junge Union and in 1973 the CDU. In 1993 he became chairman of the CDU district association Bitburg-Prüm, and in 1999 also chairman of the district parliamentary group of the CDU in the Eifel district of Bitburg-Prüm . In 2005 he was finally elected chairman of the CDU district association in Trier.

In 2008, Billen came under public criticism because of his role, among other things in connection with the merger of the savings banks in the Eifel (Bitburg-Prüm) and Vulkaneifel district (Daun), which was pursued by the CDU. There were also calls for his resignation.

Billen was also heavily criticized in connection with the expansion of Bitburg Airport, which he was pushing for, which - as with the bank mergers he was pursuing - was politically controversial. In 2009 he was a member of the 13th Federal Assembly .

In November 2009 he came under fire for a police data scandal. He then resigned from the state parliament's committee of inquiry into the Nürburgring affair . His daughter, a detective inspector, requested data from the police search system about people who were considered investors in the Nürburgring , illegally printed them out and taken them home. According to Billens, he took it with him without his daughter's knowledge. Thereupon Billen resigned his seat in the investigative committee of the state parliament.

Michael Billen in a fighter jet during a visit to Tyndall Air Force Base (2009)

At the beginning of January 2010, the Landau public prosecutor opened an investigation against him on charges of incitement to betrayal of secrets. The Landau district court in the Palatinate acquitted him on September 21, 2011 of the charge of treason. However, the Federal Court of Justice overturned the judgment on December 13, 2012 and referred the proceedings back to the Regional Court. On December 18, 2013, he was sentenced to a fine of 3,600 euros by the Frankenthal regional court.

On February 6, 2010, Member of the Bundestag Patrick Schnieder was elected as the successor to Billen as CDU district chairman. Billen emphasized that he had not started voluntarily.

MP

He became a member of the district council in 1984, and from 2004 to 2009 he was also the first district councilor of the Bitburg-Prüm district. From May 20, 1996 to May 18, 2020, Billen was a member of the Rhineland-Palatinate State Parliament. He was chairman of the committee for economy and transport of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament and is also a full member of the committee for agriculture and viticulture.

The request of the CDU parliamentary group leader Christian Baldauf to renounce his state parliament mandate was rejected by Billen. On January 7, 2010, Baldauf announced that the parliamentary group had agreed with Billen that his membership in the parliamentary group would be suspended for an indefinite period. In a newspaper interview on January 8, 2010, Billen said that he had offered his party to suspend membership in the parliamentary group and to withdraw from the committees. According to the expert opinion, Billen would retain the rights of an MP even if the party were to expel him from the parliamentary group.

Billen ran again as a direct candidate for the CDU Bitburg-Prüm in the state elections in 2011 and won the Bitburg-Prüm constituency with 33.2% of the votes. The top candidate Julia Klöckner had called for Billen not to be set up, but then accepted the vote of the district party conference in Bitburg, at which Billen prevailed against the mayor of Prüm, Mathilde Weinandy . On March 12, 2015, he was nominated as the top candidate of the CDU Bitburg-Prüm for the state elections in Rhineland-Palatinate in 2016 with a good 98 percent of the vote. In the state elections on March 13, 2016 , the SPD candidate won the direct mandate for the first time since the constituency existed (see here ). Billen lost 34.6% to Nico Steinbach , but entered the state parliament via the state list.

At the traditional New Year's reception of the CDU district association Bitburg-Prüm on January 12, 2020, Billen announced that he would be giving up his state parliament mandate on May 19 and also giving up the chairmanship in the summer. The Bitburg city councilor Michael Ludwig moved up for Billen in the state parliament.

literature

  • The President of the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate (ed.): The representatives of the free people: The members of the Consultative State Assembly and the Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate from 1946 to 2015 , 2016, ISBN 3-658-04751-8 , pp. 66–67 .

Web links

Commons : Michael Billen  - Collection of Images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Kaschenbach. A portrait of the place by Wolfgang Bartels. Here in Germany , SWR television . Last change on: November 12, 2008, 6:18 p.m.
  2. ↑ Agreement to take over 40.53% free and additional shares in Flugplatz Bitburg GmbH. ( Memento from December 13, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) News from January 27, 2010 - 6:16:26 p.m. / Angelika Koch: Before the flight comes the silence. ( Memento from January 20, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Luxemburger Wort , January 16, 2010, 8:17 p.m.
  3. ↑ Long-time CDU member of the state parliament Billen has died. In: Zeit Online , January 4, 2022, accessed January 4, 2022.
  4. ↑ Sparkasse merger off the table: Billen is not thinking of resigning. Trierischer Volksfreund, archive: July 21, 2008. Read on February 3, 2010, 6:38 pm.
  5. ↑ Does the country need Bitburg airport? , in: Trierischer Volksfreund of September 29, 2008, accessed on December 5, 2011.
  6. ^ Investigations against Michael Billen, member of the Rhineland-Palatinate state parliament. ( Memento from December 31, 2009 in the Internet Archive ), in: Mainspitze from December 28, 2009. / The brazen hackers of the Union. in: taz from January 19, 2010.
  7. ↑ Thomas Holl: Billen definitely wants to keep the mandate. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of January 5, 2010.
  8. ^ The trial against Michael Billen is reopened in: Die Welt from December 13, 2012; Retrieved December 16, 2012
  9. ^ Judgment of the Federal Court of Justice of December 13, 2012; AZ: 4 StR 33/12
  10. ↑ Nürburgring affair: court convicts CDU MP Billen for betrayal of secrets
  11. ↑ CDU: Patrick Schnieder new district chairman. , in: Trierischer Volksfreund from February 6, 2010.
  12. ↑ Member of Parliament: Michael Billen Landtag Rhineland-Palatinate . Read on February 3, 2010. 6:15 pm.
  13. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: The chairman of the CDU parliamentary group, Christian Baldauf , reports:) Media portal of the CDU Rhineland-Palatinate, No. 007/2010.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.cdurlp.de
  14. ↑ TV interview with the Eifel MP Michael Billen, who reported back on the political stage this week. ( Memento of September 3, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 81 kB)
  15. ↑  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives ) Wiesbadener Kurier , January 30, 2010.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.wiesbadener-kurier.de
  16. ^ Election results in the Eifelkreis Bitburg-Prüm ( memento from March 14, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) at the Rhineland-Palatinate regional return officer, accessed on December 4, 2011.
  17. ↑ Billen clearly wins the CDU duel against Weinandy. , in: volksfreund.de, June 28, 2010.
  18. ↑ Eifel-CDU nominates Michael Billen for state elections , in: welt.de, March 12, 2015.
  19. ↑ This election took place a few months after the start of the refugee crisis in Germany in 2015/2016 ; in this election, the AfD received 12.6% of the votes nationwide and then moved into the state parliament for the first time.
  20. ↑ When the black Eifel sees red. Trierischer Volksfreund from March 14, 2016. Retrieved on April 18, 2016 .
  21. ↑ Trierischer Volksfreund : A bang in the Eifel from January 13, 2020.
personal data
SURNAME Billen, Michael
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German politician (CDU), MdL
BIRTH DATE 4th October 1955
PLACE OF BIRTH trier
DATE OF DEATH January 4, 2022