Frank-Walter Steinmeier (German: [ˈfʁaŋkˌvaltɐ ˈʃtaɪnˌmaɪ.ɐ] ; born 5 January 1956) is a German politician who has served as President of Germany since 2017. He was previously Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2005 to 2009 and again from 2013 to 2017, as well as Vice-Chancellor of Germany from 2007 to 2009. Steinmeier was Chairman-in-Office of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) in 2016.
Steinmeier is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), holds a doctorate in law and was formerly a career civil servant. He was a close aide of Gerhard Schröder when Schröder was Minister-President of Lower Saxony during most of the 1990s, and served as Schröder's chief of staff from 1996. When Schröder became Chancellor of Germany in 1998, Steinmeier was appointed Under-Secretary of State in the German Chancellery with responsibility for the intelligence services. From 1999 to 2005, he served as Chief of Staff of the Chancellery.
Following the 2005 federal election, Steinmeier became Foreign Minister in the first grand coalition government of Angela Merkel, and from 2007 he additionally held the office of vice chancellor. In 2008, he briefly served as acting chairman of his party. He was the SPD's candidate for Chancellor in the 2009 federal election, but his party lost the election and he left the federal cabinet to become leader of the opposition. Following the 2013 federal election, he again became Minister for Foreign Affairs in Merkel's second grand coalition. In November 2016, the governing CDU/CSU-SPD coalition, which held a large majority in the Federal Convention, nominated him as candidate for President of Germany. He left the cabinet on 27 January 2017. He was elected president by the Federal Convention on 12 February 2017 with 74% of the vote. On 13 February 2022, he was re-elected by the Federal Convention for a second and final term with 78% of the vote.
Steinmeier is known as a reform-minded moderate within the SPD. As chief of staff, he was a principal architect of Agenda 2010, the Schröder government's reforms of the welfare state. His lenient policies toward countries such as Russia and China have earned him criticism both in Germany and internationally, and he has been criticised for prioritising German business interests over human rights.
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Personal life
Early life and education
Steinmeier was born in 1956 in Detmold. Although his full name is Frank-Walter, his friends call him Frank. His father, Walter Steinmeier (1928–2012), was a carpenter affiliated with the Church of Lippe (one of Germany's few Calvinist regional church bodies, and a member church of the Protestant Church in Germany). His mother, Ursula Steinmeier, born in Breslau (now Wrocław, Poland), came as a refugee from a Lutheran part of Silesia during the flight and expulsion of Germans after World War II.
Following his Abitur, Steinmeier completed 15 months of military service with the German Air Force in Goslar from 1974 to 1976. He then studied law and political science at the Justus Liebig University Giessen, where Brigitte Zypries was a fellow student. In 1982, Steinmeier passed his first and in 1986 his second state examination in law. He worked as a scientific assistant to the professor of public law and political science at Giessen University until he obtained his doctorate in law in 1991. Steinmeier's dissertation explored the state's role in preventing homelessness.
Family life
Steinmeier is married to Elke Büdenbender and has one daughter. On 24 August 2010, he donated a kidney to his wife.
In 2015, Steinmeier served as best man at the wedding of Rüdiger Grube and Cornelia Poletto in Hamburg.
Interests
Steinmeier enjoys jazz, and is an avid football fan.
Religion
Steinmeier is a Reformed Protestant and an active member of the Reformed Bethlehem congregation in Neukölln. He was baptised into his father's church (the Church of Lippe) as a youth.
Early career
Steinmeier became an adviser in 1991 for the Law of Communication media and media guidelines in the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony in Hanover. In 1993, he became director of the Personal Office for the prime minister of Lower Saxony, Gerhard Schröder. In 1996, he became the Secretary of State and head of the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony.
Political career at the federal level
Schröder Federal Chancellery (1998–2005)
In November 1998, Steinmeier was appointed as Secretary of State, a junior Chancellery bureaucrat, and Commissioner for the Federal Intelligence Services at the office of the chancellor following Schröder's election victory. He replaced Bodo Hombach as the head of the office of the chancellor in 1999, after the latter entered European Union politics. He retained his Secretary of State rank and therefore was the only Head of the Chancellery to not be appointed Minister for Special Affairs, i. e. not to have cabinet rank, from 1984 to today. During this period, Steinmeier was also one of the advisors to Schröder. He was crucial in securing a red-green majority in parliament for Schröder's contentious "Agenda 2010" of economic reforms. Because of his effective management beyond the spotlight of politics, he was nicknamed Die Graue Effizienz (lit. 'the grey efficiency') – a pun on Graue Eminenz, the German for grey eminence.
As Commissioner for the Federal Intelligence Services (a title often held by the Head of the Chancellery), Steinmeier was responsible for coordinating Germany's intelligence services. In 2003, he supported Schröder in his controversial decision to forge a coalition with Russia and France against the U.S.-led war against Iraq. Meanwhile, he approved the decision to install a German intelligence officer in the Qatar-based office of General Tommy Franks, the American commander of the U.S. invasion in Iraq, who passed on to the United States information being gathered in Baghdad by two German intelligence officers operating there.
In 2004, Steinmeier participated in diplomatic negotiations settling on compensation payments with Libya for victims of the 1986 terrorist bombing of the LaBelle disco in Berlin.
A major controversy during Steinmeier's term as chief of staff was the imprisonment of a German-born Turk, Murat Kurnaz, in Guantánamo Bay from 2002 until August 2006. Steinmeier denied during a parliamentary inquiry in March 2007 that he had blocked Kurnaz's release. Instead, he claimed that Berlin had feared Kurnaz was a threat and should go to Turkey, not Germany, if released. Only after Merkel's election was Kurnaz released and brought back to Germany.
First term as Foreign Minister (2005–2009)
On 22 November 2005, after the 2005 federal elections, Steinmeier became Minister of Foreign Affairs in the Grand coalition cabinet led by Angela Merkel. He was the first SPD Foreign Minister since Willy Brandt (1966–1969).
Upon taking office, Steinmeier led the preparations for Germany taking over the rotating presidency of the Council of the European Union in the first half of 2007.
Following Franz Müntefering's departure from the cabinet on 21 November 2007, Steinmeier also filled the position of Vice-Chancellor.
During his time in office, Steinmeier was widely regarded as having good working relations with Angela Merkel, but often took a different stance on foreign affairs. By and large, he allowed Merkel to set the pace in foreign policy, working harmoniously with her on a range of foreign policy issues, from confronting Iran over its nuclear program to negotiating binding goals to combat climate change. In one significant foreign policy disagreement, Steinmeier held in 2009 that Germany should by 2013 lay the groundwork for withdrawing its troops from Afghanistan, a deployment that around two-thirds of Germans opposed by then. Unlike Merkel, he also favoured Turkish entry into the European Union.
Also, Steinmeier became known for his rather Russia-friendly stance, arguing strenuously for engagement with the increasingly assertive power to the east, rather than its isolation. He formulated a policy toward Russia deliberately reminiscent of "Ostpolitik", the eastward-facing policy pioneered by Chancellor Willy Brandt in the early 1970s. Together with Gernot Erler, the SPD's leading Russia expert and the deputy foreign minister, Steinmeier in 2008 initiated Germany's so-called Partnership for Modernization with Russia, which became an official EU policy in 2010.
Pressed by lawmakers to say more on his attitude toward Russia in the wake of the high-profile murders of opposition figures Anna Politkovskaya and Alexander Litvinenko at a January 2007 hearing at the European Parliament, Steinmeier stated that "[t]here is a certain trend toward [media] hysterics and one needs to get a sense of reason back into the debate".
Opposition leader (2009–2013)
On 7 September 2008, following the resignation of SPD chairman Kurt Beck, Steinmeier was chosen as the SPD candidate for chancellor for the 2009 federal elections and also designated as acting SPD Chairman, pending the return of Müntefering to that position. In his election campaign, he argued for new tax rules to deter high executive pay and bonuses, and for minimum wages to slow the growing gap between Germany's highest and lowest earners. He also focused on improving public healthcare.
After the SPD's decisive defeat in the elections – the party's worst performance since World War II by then – Steinmeier, who had been elected to represent Brandenburg an der Havel – Potsdam-Mittelmark I – Havelland III – Teltow-Fläming I, was elected Peter Struck's successor as chairman of the SPD's parliamentary group in the Bundestag, and as such leader of the opposition. After a hospitalisation for donating a kidney to his wife in August 2010, Steinmeier returned to his office in October 2010.
During his time as leader of the parliamentary opposition, Steinmeier regularly accused Angela Merkel's government of increasing the national debt and pandering to the rich. In 2011, Steinmeier argued that Merkel's decision to appoint her economics adviser, Jens Weidmann, to be the next head of the Bundesbank undermined the political independence and public trust in the German central bank.
In late 2012, Steinmeier was once again considered a possible candidate to challenge Chancellor Angela Merkel in the 2013 general election, but soon withdrew from the contest. As a consequence, SPD leadership nominated Peer Steinbrück.
Second term as Foreign Minister (2013–2017)
After the elections of 2013 and the new grand coalition government, Steinmeier was appointed foreign minister for a second time in December 2013. He replaced Guido Westerwelle, who had signed the P5+1 accord with Iran in November 2013. His deputies were Michael Roth (SPD) and Maria Böhmer (CDU). Upon taking office, Steinmeier initiated an ambitious review of Germany's foreign policy, holding meetings nationwide and drawing in more than 12,000 people who worked at the ministry or abroad.
Over the course of 2014, Steinmeier alternated with Merkel as Germany's most popular politician in polls of eligible voters.
In light of criticism from the United States, Steinmeier stood firm on Germany's approach in the Russo-Ukrainian War, where it was balancing support for European economic sanctions on Russia with leaving the door open to a revived partnership. In May 2014, he proposed a greater mediation role for the OSCE, including the convening of local "round table" talks in Ukraine to defuse conflicts. The Steinmeier formula, as it is known to readers of Russian media, is synonymous with the Minsk II agreement. Between 2015 and 2016, Steinmeier hosted a series of Normandy format meetings in Berlin to negotiate a solution of the situation in the East of Ukraine.
During the Minsk II talks on a ceasefire for eastern Ukraine in early 2015, he successfully negotiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin on allowing German doctors to visit Ukrainian military pilot Nadiya Savchenko, who had been on hunger strike for more than two months in a Russian jail. Steinmeier has repeatedly ruled out arms shipments to resolve the conflict, and that was German policy until two days after the 24 February 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, at which time Chancellor Olaf Scholz ended it.
In 2015, Steinmeier hosted a meeting of the delegations from Libya's two rival governments, who were battling for control of the country, and United Nations Special Representative Bernardino León to discuss a UN-sponsored peace and power-sharing proposal despite splits among some of the parties.
Steinmeier later was instrumental in convening the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) and the Syria peace talks in Vienna in October 2015, drawing together Saudi Arabia; its main regional rival, Iran; as well as Russia, the United States and other Western powers and regional actors including Turkey and Iraq.
Political positions
In the past, Human Rights Watch has labeled Steinmeier as "Realpolitik advocate", for whom, "when it comes to defining his relationship with countries" such as Russia, China, Iran and Saudi Arabia, "human rights play only a subordinate role".
In Steinmeier's opinion, the "[r]ejection of capital punishment is one of the keystones of German human-rights policy. The death penalty goes against our fundamental ethic and moral principles". He personally called for the abolition of the death penalty in Uzbekistan; capital punishment in Uzbekistan has been abolished since 2008. In April 2014, he summoned the Egyptian ambassador, Mohamed Higazy, after a Cairo court sentenced 683 individuals to death for inciting violence during protests in summer 2013, following the military overthrow of elected President Mohammed Morsi. Following the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt, he warned that any move by Turkey to reinstate the death penalty would derail its efforts to join the European Union. He criticised the 2016–present purges in Turkey.
In response to the 2009 Iranian presidential election protests following the 2009 Iranian presidential election against the disputed victory of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Steinmeier condemned what he called "brutal actions" against demonstrators in Tehran and summoned the Iranian ambassador Alireza Sheikhattar to explain.
After Germany had only narrowly managed to avoid a deficit warning from the European Commission in 2002, Schröder and Steinmeier became the driving forces behind weakening the Stability and Growth Pact, a rule-based framework for the coordination of national fiscal policies originally intended as the guarantor of a stable euro.
In a joint article in the Financial Times on 14 December 2010, Steinmeier and Peer Steinbrück proposed to solve the European debt crisis with "a combination of a haircut for debt holders, debt guarantees for stable countries and the limited introduction of European-wide bonds in the medium term, accompanied by more aligned fiscal policies". In February 2011, Steinmeier proposed Steinbrück as a candidate to lead the European Central Bank.
Under Steinmeier's parliamentary leadership, the Social Democrats raised pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel to agree to more burden-sharing to stem the euro zone crisis, repeatedly calling on her to assume greater risks to avert a breakup of the single currency. In both February and November 2012, his parliamentary group voted largely in favour of the Merkel government's proposal for eurozone bailout packages for Greece, while criticising the measures as being "not an enduring solution for the Greeks". In July 2014, he helped build the opposition's support for a euro zone rescue package for Spanish banks. Later, as foreign minister, he publicly advised against "frivolous" talk of a Greek withdrawal from the eurozone, calling for a serious search for a solution.
Controversies
Steinmeier openly attacked Merkel over her 2007 meeting with the Dalai Lama, accusing the chancellor of "playing to public opinion" without regard for the effectiveness of the meeting in improving political or religious rights on the ground in China. In 2008, he refused to meet the Dalai Lama during his five-day visit, arguing that such a meeting could undermine international efforts to promote sustained contact between China and Tibet. Instead, Steinmeier issued the statement "it takes a lot of courage not to meet with the Dalai Lama these days", which The New York Times described as "extraordinarily cynical" and accused Steinmeier of prioritizing business interests over human rights.
In the case of Murat Kurnaz, innocently imprisoned in 2002 and tortured by the United States, Steinmeier allegedly had an offer by the United States Department of Defense and the CIA already in September 2002 regarding a transfer of Murat Kurnaz to Germany, where he was born and raised. Kurnaz had been first sold as a terror suspect in Pakistan, then imprisoned in Afghanistan and later in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, until 2006. By refusing the offer, Steinmeier is thought to have been politically directly responsible for his continued imprisonment.
A BND commission of enquiry was consulted.
During a 2015 debate about Germany's recognition of the Armenian genocide on the occasion of its 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, Steinmeier was the politician most reluctant to endorse it, mainly because of Germany's relations with Turkey. He was widely criticized for his position and accused of Armenian genocide denial. When the German Bundestag almost unanimously approved a resolution in 2016 that recognises the killings of up to 1.5 million Armenians by Ottoman forces as a genocide, a description that Turkey strongly rejects, Steinmeier abstained from the vote and criticized the resolution in public; Steinmeier was one of only two of the 630 members of parliament who did not support the resolution. And Steinmeier alleged that calling Armenian massacres genocide risks belittling the Holocaust.
Following the 2013 elections, Steinmeier became the first prominent member of the Social Democrats to be confronted with allegations that he plagiarised parts of his 1991 doctoral dissertation about the role of the state in the prevention of homelessness. Similar accusations had previously led to the resignation of two ministers of the Merkel government. In response, Steinmeier rejected the charges and said that he had asked the University of Giessen to check his dissertation for unacknowledged citations. In May 2013, a university committee for safeguarding academic practices found that Steinmeier had no fraudulent intent and had not committed academic misconduct in his dissertation. The committee did find "technical weaknesses" in Steinmeier's citations, but said they were not severe enough to consider revoking his degree.
Presidency (2017–present)
First presidential term
In June 2016 President Joachim Gauck decided not to run for re-election, resulting in a search for a candidate to succeed him. In November 2016, Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives agreed with the Social Democrats to support Steinmeier's candidacy for president in the presidential election, scheduled for 12 February 2017.
Merkel had originally wanted to nominate Green politician Marianne Birthler, and as the CDU/CSU and the Greens control a majority in the Federal Convention, Birthler's election would have been secured. However, Birthler after some time decided not to run.
On 12 February 2017, Germany's 16th Federal Convention elected Steinmeier President on the first ballot, with 931 votes out of a total of 1,260. Steinmeier took office as President of Germany on 19 March 2017, after the expiration of his predecessor's term in office, and on 22 March 2017, he took the oath of office.
Following the federal election in September 2017, coalition talks began between the Christian Democratic Union, Christian Social Union, Free Democratic Party and the Green Party. The talks continued for 4 weeks until just past midnight on 20 November, when the Free Democrats walked out of the talks. The collapse of the talks left another Grand Coalition as the only coalition with a majority in the Bundestag; this however seemed difficult, as the Leader of the Social Democratic Party, Martin Schulz, had ruled out another Grand Coalition on multiple occasions.
In the following weeks, Steinmeier played an important role in the formation of the next government. He declared he would not consider a dissolution of the Bundestag as a preferable solution, and managed to persuade Martin Schulz to meet with Angela Merkel and start preliminary talks. After long coalition talks, CDU, CSU and SPD formed a new grand coalition. Merkel was re-elected Chancellor on 14 March 2018.
In October 2017, Steinmeier visited Putin and Gorbachev in Moscow.
As early as June 2021, an Estonian academic characterised Steinmeier's politics of Russian rapprochement as "dangerous idealism".
Second presidential term
On 13 February 2022, he was re-elected as president.
Shortly after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Steinmeier expressed regret for his earlier stance on Russia, saying his years of support for the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline had been a clear mistake. In April 2022 he called for a war crimes tribunal against Russian President Vladimir Putin and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. Steinmeier said that he "wrongly believed that Vladimir Putin would not precipitate a complete economic, political, and moral devastation of his country because of his imperial mania."
In April 2022, Steinmeier abandoned plans to visit Kyiv after admitting he would not be welcome in Ukraine in what was seen as a serious snub for one of Germany's most senior politicians. At the time, German news media cited Ukrainian officials as saying that the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy would refuse to meet Steinmeier if he came to Kyiv. Ukraine had previously criticized Steinmeier for his connections to Russia and his role in strengthening German-Russian relations under the Change through Trade (Wandel durch Handel) policy.
On 25 October 2022, Steinmeier made an official visit to Ukraine, after a scheduled visit on 20 October was cancelled for security reasons due to a wave of cruise missile and drone attacks across Ukraine. At the time, DW News was talking about a new €350-billion Marshall Plan to aid Ukraine even while Russian bombs were still falling from Kyiv skies. Upon his return to Berlin, he spoke at length of his Ukrainian experiences on 28 October, and opened with vivid descriptions of the horrors of war, noting that it had caused "the deepest crisis" that a reunified Germany has seen. He warned that "tougher, rough years are ahead of us."
On 29 November 2022 Steinmeier was interviewed again on this subject by a journalist from Deutsche Welle at his official residence. While opining that it is too early to talk about security guarantees for Ukraine, he condemned Russia's recent attacks on civilians and on gas and electricity supplies in Ukraine, saying:
A cease-fire now would mean Russia would keep the territories it has occupied. It is also reckless to suggest a cease-fire now, because to establish a cease-fire at this point in time would essentially condone all of the injustice that has already taken place.
Other activities
German Coordinating Council for Christian-Jewish Cooperation Organizations, member of the board (2009–2013)
Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), member
German Protestant Church Assembly, member of the board
German Protestant Institute of Archaeology, member of the board
International Journalists' Programmes, member of the board of trustees
Peace of Westphalia Prize, member of the jury
Rudolf Pichlmayr Foundation for Organ Transplantation, member of the board
Aktion Deutschland Hilft (Germany's Relief Coalition), member of the board of trustees (−2017)
Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, ex-officio member of the board of trustees (−2017)
KfW, ex officio member of the supervisory board (−2017).
Recognition
Honorary appointment
Honorary doctorate of the Ural State Technical University, Russia (2010)
Willy Brandt Prize (2013)
Honorary citizen of Reims (2015)
Honorary doctorate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (2015)
Honorary doctorate of the University of Piraeus, Greece (2015)
Honorary doctorate of the University of Paderborn (2016)
Toleranzpreis der Evangelischen Akademie Tutzing (2016)
Ignatz Bubis Award (2017)
World Food Programme's Hunger Hero Award (2017)
Honorary doctorate of the Lebanese University (2018)
Leo Baeck Medal (2021)
Henry A. Kissinger Prize (2022)
Honours
National honours
Grand Master of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (19 March 2017 – Present)
Grand Cross Special Class of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany (19 March 2017)
Foreign honours
Austria:
Grand Decoration of Honour in Gold with Sash of the Order of Merit of the Austrian Republic (23 April 2016)
Grand Star of the Decoration of Honour for Services to the Republic of Austria (21 October 2025)
Kazakhstan: Order of the Golden Eagle (29 September 2026)
Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Order of Leopold (5 December 2023)
Bulgaria: First Class of the Order of the Balkan Mountains (20 September 2007)
Cyprus: Grand Collar of the Order of Makarios III (12 February 2024)
Denmark: Knight of the Order of the Elephant (10 November 2021)
Ecuador: Grand Collar of the National Order of Merit (13 February 2019)
France: Grand Officer of the National Order of Legion of Honour (26 January 2017)
Finland: Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of the White Rose of Finland (17 September 2018)
Iceland: Collar with Grand Cross Breast Star of the Order of the Falcon (12 June 2019)
Italy:
Knight Grand Cross with Collar of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (17 September 2019)
Knight Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic (21 March 2006)