Matthias Berninger (born 1971) is a former German politician and member of The Greens from 1993 until 2007. From 2001 to 2005, Berninger served as Parliamentary Secretary of State at the

Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection The Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture (german: Bundesministerium für Ernährung und Landwirtschaft, ), abbreviated BMEL, is a cabinet-level ministry of the Federal Republic of Germany. Its primary headquarters are located in Bonn with ...

under minister Renate Künast in the

second The second (symbol: s) is the unit of time in the International System of Units (SI), historically defined as of a day – this factor derived from the division of the day first into 24 hours, then to 60 minutes and finally to 60 seconds ...

cabinet of

Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...

Gerhard Schröder. After leaving the government, he was his parliamentary group's spokesperson on economic policy from 2005 until 2007. Since 2019, Berninger has been serving as Executive Vice President of Public and Government Affairs and Head of Sustainability at

Bayer Bayer AG (, commonly pronounced ; ) is a German multinational corporation, multinational pharmaceutical and biotechnology company and one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world. Headquartered in Leverkusen, Bayer's areas of busi ...

. Berninger lives with his wife and children in Washington, D.C.

School and studies

After graduating from the Goethe-Gymnasium Kassel in 1990, Berninger began studying chemistry and political science at the

Gesamthochschule Kassel The University of Kassel (german: link=no, Universität Kassel) is a university founded in 1971 located in Kassel, Hessen, in central Germany. As of February 2022 it had about 25,000 students and about 3300 staff, including more than 300 profe ...

, which he completed in 1994 with the first state examination for the teaching profession at secondary schools.

Political career

Since 1990, Berninger has been a member of Bündnis 90/Die Grünen. From 1993 to 1997 he was a member of the municipal council of Ahnatal and from 1993 to 1994 also in the

Kreistag In all German states, except for the three city states, the primary administrative subdivision higher than a ''Gemeinde'' (municipality) is the (official term in all but two states) or (official term in the states of North Rhine-Westphalia a ...

of the

Landkreis Kassel Kassel district (German: Landkreis Kassel) is a district in the north of Hesse, Germany. Neighboring districts are Northeim, Göttingen, Werra-Meißner, Schwalm-Eder, Waldeck-Frankenberg, Höxter. The independent city of Kassel is nearly complet ...

. From 2003 to 2007, Berninger was parliamentary representative for the Green Party for the State of Hesse in the Bundestag. In the 1994 Bundestag election, at the age of 23, Berninger became the youngest ever

Member of the German Bundestag Member of the German Parliament (german: Mitglied des Deutschen Bundestages) is the official name given to a deputy in the German Bundestag. ''Member of Parliament'' refers to the elected members of the federal Bundestag Parliament at the Reichs ...

. Here, from 1997 to 2001, he was the higher education policy spokesman for the parliamentary group

Alliance 90/The Greens Alliance 90/The Greens (german: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, ), often simply referred to as the Greens ( ), is a Green politics, green List of political parties in Germany, political party in Germany. It was formed in 1993 as the merger of The Greens ...

. On 23 January 2001, Berninger was appointed

Parliamentary Secretary of State Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State (or just Parliamentary Secretary, particularly in departments not led by a Secretary of State) is the lowest of three tiers of government minister in the UK government, immediately junior to a Minister o ...

to the Federal Minister of Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture led by

Gerhard Schröder. At the age of 29, he became the youngest parliamentary Secretary of State ever appointed. Berninger left his post of

on 22 November 2005. He ran for the post of parliamentary secretary, but was defeated by Volker Beck on the first ballot by 17 votes to 34. From 2005 to 2007, he served as the economic policy spokesman for the Bündnis 90/Die Grünen. Berninger ended his political career in February 2007. Berninger was considered a

realo Fundis is short for fundamentalists. The term was used for a faction within the German Green Party. The faction was formed in conflict to the Realo-faction within their party. The term has also been applied to similar conflicts. General meaning ...

and a pupil of Joschka Fischer.''Matthias Berninger: Fischer's pupil was always the youngest''
In: '' Die Welt'', 18 January 2001. He was a member of the , a group of young deputies of the CDU and Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, which was considered a forerunner of the Black-Green Coalition. Berninger was considered an Economic Liberal and representative of the New Economy.

Private sector

In 2007, Berninger moved to Brussels as a lobbyist to the U.S. food and confectionery corporation Mars Incorporated as Director of Corporate Health and Nutrition, to improve the companies public image in Europe. In August 2008, he was promoted to Global Head of Public Policy, with responsibility for global health, nutrition and sustainability. On 1 January 2019, Berninger moved to Bayer AG as head of the newly created Public Relations and Sustainability division, after the group acquired U.S. seed and pesticide manufacturer Monsanto for 59 billion euros. As a result, Berninger, as chief lobbyist, must deal with questions about the pesticide glyphosate, the use of which is highly criticized by his former Bündnis 90/Die Grünen colleagues in Germany. He commented on this in an interview with the news magazine ''

Der Spiegel ''Der Spiegel'' (, lit. ''"The Mirror"'') is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of 695,100 copies, it was the largest such publication in Europe in 2011. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

''.

Film

* ''Rot-Grün macht Kasse.'' Documentary about the activities of former politicians as lobbyists, 30 min, Germany, 2011, Production:

NDR NDR may refer to: Computing * Non delivery report, a return email message to a sender indicating failed message delivery * Network Data Representation, an implementation of the OSI model presentation layer Science and technology * Negative differ ...

Panorama A panorama (formed from Greek πᾶν "all" + ὅραμα "view") is any wide-angle view or representation of a physical space, whether in painting, drawing, photography, film, seismic images, or 3D modeling. The word was originally coined in ...

ARD-exclusiv: Rot-Grün macht Kasse - Panorama - NDR.
YouTube; retrieved 15 February 2021

Cabinets

* Schröder Cabinet I - Schröder Cabinet II

References

External links

biography at the German Bundestag
*

tagesspiegel.de
Bayer buys Green politician
votum24 1971 births Living people Politicians from Kassel Members of the Bundestag for Hesse Members of the Bundestag 2005–2009 Members of the Bundestag 2002–2005 Members of the Bundestag 1998–2002 Members of the Bundestag 1994–1998 Members of the Bundestag for Alliance 90/The Greens {{Germany-Greens-politician-stub