Jürgen Hardt

Jürgen Hardt (born 30 May 1963) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who currently serves as a member of the Bundestag.

Jürgen Hardt
Member of the Bundestag
Assumed office
2009
Personal details
Born (1963-05-30) 30 May 1963
Hofheim am Taunus, Hesse, West Germany
(now Germany)
CitizenshipGerman
NationalityGermany
Political partyCDU

Early life and career

After obtaining Abitur 1982 in Königstein im Taunus,[1] Hardt served as a naval officer in the Bundeswehr for four years and studied economics in Heidelberg and Cologne from 1986 to 1993.

From 1992 to 2001 Hardt worked for the federal office of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and for the CDU/CSU parliamentary group in the Bundestag, including as head of the office of Peter Hintze, the CDU Secretary-General, from 1995 to 1998. From 2001 to 2009 he was a senior manager at household appliances company Vorwerk in Wuppertal.[1]

Political career
At the convention of the CDU at 15 November 2010 in Karlsruhe

On the national level, Hardt was federal chairman of the Association of Christian Democratic Students (RCDS) from 1987 to 1989. From 2004 to 2009 he served as a member of Wuppertal's city council and chaired the council's committee on economic affairs.[1]

Since 2003 Hardt has been serving as chairman of the Wuppertal county branch of the CDU and since 2005 deputy chairman of the Bergisches Land district branch of the CDU.[1]

Member of the Bundestag, 2009–present
During his first speech in the German Bundestag on 26 February 2010

Hardt was first elected to the Bundestag in the 2009 federal election, representing Solingen – Remscheid – Wuppertal II. He served on the Defense Committee[2] and the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union[3] between 2009 and 2015 before moving to the Committee on Foreign Affairs.

In addition to his committee assignments, Hardt is a member of the German-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group and of the German delegation to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly.[1] He has also been a substitute member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) since 2014, where he has served on the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy (since 2016), the Sub-Committee on External Relations (since 2018) and Sub-Committee on Culture, Diversity and Heritage (2014-2015).[4]

In April 2014, Hardt succeeded Philipp Mißfelder as Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation at the Federal Foreign Office in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel,[5] an office he held until April 2018.[6] Following Mißfelder’s death in 2015, he also took over as foreign policy spokesperson of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. In the negotiations to form a coalition government under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, he was part of the working group on foreign policy, led by Ursula von der Leyen, Gerd Müller and Sigmar Gabriel.

Other activities

Corporate boards
  • WSW Wuppertaler Stadtwerke, Member of the Supervisory Board

Non-profit organizations

Political positions

In June 2017, Hardt voted against Germany’s introduction of same-sex marriage.[12] Ahead of the Christian Democrats’ leadership election in 2018, he publicly endorsed Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Angela Merkel as the party’s chair.

When German federal prosecutors accused the Russian government in 2020 of ordering the killing of a former Chechen rebel in Berlin and indicted a Russian man for the murder, Hardt called for further sanctions against Russia.[13]

References
  1. "Jürgen Hardt, Lebenslauf" (in German). Jürgen Hardt. Archived from the original on 1 June 2013. Retrieved 5 January 2011.
  2. "Verteidigungsausschuss" (in German). Bundestag. Archived from the original on 29 July 2010. Retrieved 5 January 2011.
  3. "Ausschuss für die Angelegenheiten der Europäischen Union" (in German). Bundestag. Archived from the original on 31 December 2013. Retrieved 4 January 2011.
  4. Jürgen Hardt Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.
  5. German MFA press release
  6. Gregor Mayntz (April 10, 2018), Ratinger neuer USA-Beauftragter der Regierung Rheinische Post.
  7. Advisory Board Allied Museum.
  8. Council German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP).
  9. Boards Archived 2016-09-11 at the Wayback Machine German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP).
  10. Members of the Commission RIAS Berlin Commission.
  11. Advisory Board Civis mit Sonde.
  12. Diese Unionsabgeordneten stimmten für die Ehe für alle Die Welt, June 30, 2017.
  13. Michael Nienaber and Andreas Rinke (June 18, 2020), German prosecutors accuse Russia of ordering murder of former Chechen rebel in Berlin Reuters.
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