Walter Riester (born 27 September 1943 in Kaufbeuren) is a German politician of the SPD and former Minister of Labour and Social Affairs.
Riester joined the SPD in 1966. From 1993 to 1998 he was deputy chairman of the IG Metall. [1]
From 1998 until 2005, Riester was a member of the SPD's federal executive board, under the leadership of successive chairmen Gerhard Schröder and Franz Müntefering.
From 1998 to 2002 Riester was Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in the cabinet of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. The ministry was dissolved after the 2002 elections, so Riester was withdrawn from the cabinet, although there had been no change of government. His name is best known for the so-called Riester-Rente, a grant-aided privately funded pension scheme, which was created during his term of office.
From 2002 until 2009, Riester was a member of the German Bundestag, where he served on the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development. In addition to his committee assignments, he was a member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
Herta Däubler-Gmelin is a German lawyer, academic and politician of the Social Democratic Party. She served as Federal Minister of Justice from 1998 to 2002, and as a Member of the Bundestag from 1972 to 2009. She currently teaches as an honorary professor of political science at the Free University of Berlin, particularly on international relations and human rights, and was the Hemmerle Professor at RWTH Aachen University in 2011. She is married to the legal scholar Wolfgang Däubler.
Otto Georg Schily is a former Federal Minister of the Interior of Germany, his tenure was from 1998 to 2005, in the cabinet of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).
Franz Müntefering is a German politician. He was Chairman of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) from 2004 to 2005 and again from 18 October 2008 to 13 November 2009. He served as the minister of Labour and Social Affairs, as well as the vice chancellor of Germany, in the cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2005 to 2007.
Günter Verheugen is a German politician who served as European Commissioner for Enlargement from 1999 to 2004, and then as European Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry from 2004 to 2010. He was also one of five vice presidents of the 27-member Barroso Commission. After his retirement, he is now honorary Professor at the European University Viadrina in Frankfurt (Oder).
Rudolf Albert Scharping is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD).
Norbert Blüm was a German politician who served as a federal legislator from North Rhine-Westphalia, chairman of the CDU North Rhine-Westphalia (1987–1999), and Minister of Labour and Social Affairs.
Brigitte Zypries is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Between 2017 and 2018, she served as Minister for Economics and Energy in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel; she was the first woman to hold that office in German history.
Wolfgang Tiefensee is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He was the Federal Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development in the grand coalition cabinet led by Angela Merkel between 2005 and 2009. Since 2014, he has been the State Minister of Economy, Science and the Digital Society in the government of Thuringia's Minister-President Bodo Ramelow.
Ursula "Ulla" Schmidt is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). From 2001 to 2009 she was Federal Minister of Health in the German Government. Between 2013 and 2017, she served as Vice-President of the German Bundestag.
Kurt Bodewig is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as a member of the German Bundestag from 1998 to 2009, representing the Neuss I district. From 2000 to 2002, he served as Minister for Transport, Building and Urban Development in the government of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.
Wolfgang-Hubertus Heil is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as Federal Minister of Labour and Social Affairs in the fourth cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel and the first cabinet of Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 14 March 2018.
Thomas Ludwig Albert Oppermann was a German politician and member of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). From October 2017 until his death he served as Vice President of the Bundestag. In his earlier career, he served as First Secretary (2007–2013) and later as chairman (2013–2017) of the SPD Parliamentary Group in the Bundestag.
Gerhard Fritz Kurt "Gerd" Schröder is a German former politician who was the chancellor of Germany from 1998 to 2005. From 1999 to 2004, he was also the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD). As chancellor, he led a coalition government of the SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens. Since leaving public office, Schröder has worked for Russian state-owned energy companies, including Nord Stream AG, Rosneft, and Gazprom.
Anke Fuchs was a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. She was Federal Minister for Youth, Family and Health (1982) and Vice President of the Bundestag (1998–2002). From 2003 until 2010, she was the president of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation.
Ole Schröder is a German politician and member of the CDU. From 2009 until 2018, he served as Parliamentary State Secretary in the German Federal Ministry of the Interior.
Barbara Anne Hendricks is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2013 until 2018.
Yasmin Fahimi is a German trade unionist and politician who has been chairing the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB) since 2022.
Christoph Matschie is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as Deputy Minister-President of Thuringia between 2009 and 2014. He was also a member of the Bundestag from 1999 to 2004 and from 2017 to 2021.
Christoph Butterwegge is a German political scientist and poverty researcher. From 1998 to 2016 he was Professor of Political Science at the Institute for Comparative Education and Social Sciences at the Humanities Faculty of the University of Cologne and is a member of the Research Center for Intercultural Studies (FiSt).
Rolf Heinrich Mützenich is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who has been serving as chairman of the SPD parliamentary group in the Bundestag since June 2019.