Wolfgang Walter Wilhelm Bosbach (born 11 June 1952) is a German politician and member of Christian Democratic Union (CDU), which he joined in 1972. A lawyer by profession, Bosbach is a partner at Winter, Jansen & Lamsfuß in

Bergisch Gladbach Bergisch Gladbach () is a city in the Cologne/Bonn Region of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, and capital of the Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis (district). Geography Bergisch Gladbach is located east of the river Rhine, approx. 10 kilometers east of ...

Political career

Bosbach was a directly elected member of the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet") is the German federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representatives or the House of Commons ...

from 1994 until 2017, representing Rheinisch-Bergischer Kreis, and the deputy parliamentary group leader of his party from 2000 until 2009. From 1994 until 2002 and from 2009 until 2017, he served on the Committee on Internal Affairs. Following the 2013 federal elections, Bosbach was part of the CDU/CSU team in the negotiations with the SPD on a coalition agreement. In August 2016 Bosbach announced that he would not stand in the 2017 federal elections but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term due to his deteriorating health. That same month, he agreed to serve as columnist for German

tabloid Tabloid may refer to: * Tabloid journalism, a type of journalism * Tabloid (newspaper format), a newspaper with compact page size ** Chinese tabloid * Tabloid (paper size), a North American paper size * Sopwith Tabloid, a biplane aircraft * ''Ta ...

Bild ''Bild'' (or ''Bild-Zeitung'', ; ) is a German tabloid newspaper published by Axel Springer SE. The paper is published from Monday to Saturday; on Sundays, its sister paper ''Bild am Sonntag'' ("''Bild on Sunday''") is published instead, which ...

'' from 2017 on.

Career after politics

In 2017,

Minister-President A minister-president or minister president is the head of government in a number of European countries or subnational governments with a parliamentary or semi-presidential system of government where they preside over the council of ministers. It ...

Armin Laschet of

North Rhine-Westphalia North Rhine-Westphalia (german: Nordrhein-Westfalen, ; li, Noordrien-Wesfale ; nds, Noordrhien-Westfalen; ksh, Noodrhing-Wäßßfaale), commonly shortened to NRW (), is a States of Germany, state (''Land'') in Western Germany. With more tha ...

appointed Bosbach as chair of a commission to advise the state government on criminal justice reforms. Ahead of the

2021 Rhineland-Palatinate state election The 2021 Rhineland-Palatinate state election was held on 14 March 2021 to elect the 18th Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate. The outgoing government was a "traffic light coalition" of the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Free Democratic Party (FDP), a ...

, CDU candidate

Christian Baldauf Christian Baldauf (born 9 August 1967 in Frankenthal) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union who has been serving as a member of the Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate since 2001, where he is the leader of the CDU parl ...

included Bosbach in his shadow cabinet for the party's campaign to unseat incumbent Malu Dreyer as Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Political positions

European integration

In August 2011, Bosbach became the first senior CDU MP to say he would not vote for legal changes to allow the European Financial Stability Facility to buy sovereign bonds on the market. He later criticized the permanent rescue mechanism – called

European Stability Mechanism The European Stability Mechanism (ESM) is an intergovernmental organization located in Luxembourg City, which operates under public international law for all eurozone member states having ratified a special ESM intergovernmental treaty. It was ...

– was a step toward a European transfer union. In 2012, he told German business magazine '' Wirtschaftswoche'' that Greece should leave the euro region to overhaul its economy. On 27 February 2015 Bosbach voted against the Merkel government's proposal for a four-month extension of Greece's bailout; in doing so, he joined a record number of 29 dissenters from the CDU/CSU parliamentary group who expressed skepticism about whether the Greek government under

Prime Minister A prime minister, premier or chief of cabinet is the head of the cabinet and the leader of the ministers in the executive branch of government, often in a parliamentary or semi-presidential system. Under those systems, a prime minister is not ...

Alexis Tsipras Alexis Tsipras ( el, Αλέξης Τσίπρας, ; born 28 July 1974) is a Greek politician serving as Leader of the Official Opposition since 2019. He served as Prime Minister of Greece from 2015 to 2019. Tsipras has led the Coalition of th ...

could be trusted to deliver on its reform pledges. On 17 July he voted against the government's proposal to negotiate a third bailout for Greece; in response to the resulting discussions with fellow conservative MPs, he resigned from his office as Chairman of the Committee on Internal Affairs.

Domestic politics

In 2013, Bosbach rejected calls to grant Muslims living in Germany two days of official holiday a year to mark important religious festivals, saying there was "no Islamic tradition in Germany" and that religious holidays here reflected the country's Christian heritage.

Other activities

Corporate boards

1. FC Köln 1. Fußball-Club Köln 01/07 e. V., commonly known as simply FC Köln () or FC Cologne in English, is a German professional football club based in Cologne in North Rhine-Westphalia. It was formed in 1948 as a merger of the clubs ''Kölner Ballspi ...

, Member of the Advisory Board *

Deutsche Telekom Deutsche Telekom AG (; short form often just Telekom, DTAG or DT; stylised as ·T·) is a German telecommunications company that is headquartered in Bonn and is the largest telecommunications provider in Europe by revenue. Deutsche Telekom was ...

, Member of the Data Privacy Advisory Board *

Signal Iduna The SIGNAL IDUNA Group offers insurance and financial services. The group was created through the merger of the Dortmund-based Signal Versicherungen and the Hamburg-based Iduna Nova Group on 1 July 1999. The companies of these two groups have ...

Allgemeine Versicherung, Member of the Supervisory Board * Securitas Deutschland, Member of the Supervisory Board (1998–2002)

Non-profit organizations

* ''

Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie (Against Oblivion – For Democracy) is a German organization promoting diversity, tolerance and democratic participation, and opposing racism, prejudice and right-wing and left-wing extremism. It focuses in p ...

'', Member *

Rotary International Rotary International is one of the largest service organizations in the world. Its stated mission is to "provide service to others, promote integrity, and advance world understanding, goodwill, and peace through hefellowship of business, prof ...

, Member *

ZDF ZDF (, short for Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen; ; "Second German Television") is a German public-service television broadcaster based in Mainz, Rhineland-Palatinate. It is run as an independent nonprofit institution, which was founded by all fe ...

, Member of the Television Board *

, Member of the Advisory Board (-2019) *

Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and Future" The Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (German: Stiftung Erinnerung, Verantwortung und Zukunft; acronym EVZ), is a German Federal organisation with the purpose of making financial compensation available "to former forced laborers and ...

, Member of the Board of Trustees (2000–2006) * Ursula Lübbe Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees (2005–2009)

Recognition

* 2013 – "Goldenes Steuerrad" (golden steering wheel) of the Großen Mülheimer Karnevals-Gesellschaft von 1903 * 2014 – Honorary senator of the

Düsseldorf Düsseldorf ( , , ; often in English sources; Low Franconian and Ripuarian: ''Düsseldörp'' ; archaic nl, Dusseldorp ) is the capital city of North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populous state of Germany. It is the second-largest city in th ...

er Karnevalsgesellschaft Weissfräcke

References

External links