Jürgen Hardt (born 30 May 1963) is a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has served as a 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 Comm ...

since 2009.

Early life and career

After obtaining

Abitur ''Abitur'' (), often shortened colloquially to ''Abi'', is a qualification granted at the end of secondary education in Germany. It is conferred on students who pass their final exams at the end of ISCED 3, usually after twelve or thirteen ye ...

1982 in

Königstein im Taunus Königstein im Taunus () is a health spa and lies on the thickly wooded slopes of the Taunus in Hesse, Germany. The town is part of the Frankfurt Rhein-Main urban area. Owing to its advantageous location for both scenery and transport on the ...

, Hardt served as a naval officer in the

Bundeswehr The ''Bundeswehr'' (, meaning literally: ''Federal Defence'') is the armed forces of the Federal Republic of Germany. The ''Bundeswehr'' is divided into a military part (armed forces or ''Streitkräfte'') and a civil part, the military part con ...

for four years and studied

economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...

Heidelberg Heidelberg (; Palatine German: ') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914, of which roughly a quarter consisted of students ...

and

Cologne Cologne ( ; german: Köln ; ksh, Kölle ) is the largest city of the German western state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) and the fourth-most populous city of Germany with 1.1 million inhabitants in the city proper and 3.6 millio ...

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 CDU/CSU, unofficially the Union parties (german: Unionsparteien, ) or the Union, is a centre-right Christian-democratic political alliance of two political parties in Germany: the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) and the Christian Soc ...

parliamentary group in the Bundestag, including as head of the office of

Peter Hintze Peter Hintze (25 April 1950 – 26 November 2016) was a German politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who served as a member of the German Bundestag from 1990 until his death in 2016. From 2013 until 2016, Hintze was one of the six ...

, the CDU Secretary-General, from 1995 to 1998. From 2001 to 2009 he was a senior manager at household appliances company

Vorwerk Vorwerk may refer to: *Vorwerk, Lower Saxony, a municipality in the Rotenburg district, Lower Saxony *a locality of Altenmedingen, in the Uelzen district, Lower Saxony *a subdivision of Celle, Lower Saxony *a Vorwerk (fortification), an advanced fo ...

Wuppertal Wuppertal (; "''Wupper Dale''") is, with a population of approximately 355,000, the seventh-largest city in North Rhine-Westphalia as well as the 17th-largest city of Germany. It was founded in 1929 by the merger of the cities and tow ...

. As head of corporate communications at Vorwerk he won the German Public Relations Prize in 2005.

Political career

Jürgen Hardt joined the CDU in 1981. On the national level, he was federal chairman of the

Association of Christian Democratic Students The Association of Christian Democratic Students (german: Ring Christlich-Demokratischer Studenten) is a German student organisation founded in 1951 and based in Berlin. It contains more than 100 groups at universities with 8,000 members in tot ...

(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. 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 The Bergisches Land (, ''Berg Country'') is a low mountain range region within the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, east of Rhine river, south of the Ruhr. The landscape is shaped by woods, meadows, rivers and creeks and contains ...

district branch of the CDU.

Member of the Bundestag

Hardt was first elected to the Bundestag in the 2009 federal election, representing Solingen – Remscheid – Wuppertal II. He served on the Defense Committee and the Committee on the Affairs of the

European Union The European Union (EU) is a supranational union, supranational political union, political and economic union of Member state of the European Union, member states that are located primarily in Europe, Europe. The union has a total area of ...

between 2009 and 2015 before moving to the Committee on Foreign Affairs. In addition to his committee assignments, Hardt was a member of the German-Israeli Parliamentary Friendship Group and of the German delegation to the

NATO Parliamentary Assembly Founded in 1955, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA) serves as the consultative interparliamentary organisation for the North Atlantic Alliance. Its current President is Gerald E. Connolly from the United States, elected in 2019. Its curre ...

. He was also a substitute member of the German delegation to the

Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) is the parliamentary arm of the Council of Europe, a 46-nation international organisation dedicated to upholding human rights, democracy and the rule of law. The Assembly is made up ...

(PACE) from 2014 until 2021, where he served on the Committee on Political Affairs and Democracy (2016–2021), the Sub-Committee on External Relations (2018–2021) and Sub-Committee on Culture, Diversity and Heritage (2014–2015). In April 2014, Hardt succeeded Philipp Mißfelder as Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation at the

Federal Foreign Office , logo = DEgov-AA-Logo en.svg , logo_width = 260 px , image = Auswaertiges Amt Berlin Eingang.jpg , picture_width = 300px , image_caption = Entrance to the Foreign Office building , headquarters = Werderscher Mark ...

in the government 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 ...

Angela Merkel Angela Dorothea Merkel (; ; born 17 July 1954) is a German former politician and scientist who served as Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), she previously served as Leader of the Opp ...

, an office he held until April 2018. Following Mißfelder’s death in 2015, he also took over as foreign policy spokesperson of the

parliamentary group and has held this position ever since. In the negotiations to form a

coalition government A coalition government is a form of government in which political parties cooperate to form a government. The usual reason for such an arrangement is that no single party has achieved an absolute majority after an election, an atypical outcome in ...

under the leadership of

following the 2017 federal elections, he was part of the working group on foreign policy, led by

Ursula von der Leyen Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen (; Albrecht, born 8 October 1958) is a German politician who has been serving as the president of the European Commission since 2019. She served in the German federal government between 2005 and 2019, holding suc ...

Gerd Müller Gerhard "Gerd" Müller (; 3 November 1945 – 15 August 2021) was a German professional footballer. A striker renowned for his clinical finishing, especially in and around the six-yard box, he is widely regarded as one of the greatest goalscor ...

and

Sigmar Gabriel Sigmar Hartmut Gabriel (born 12 September 1959) is a German politician who was the Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs from 2017 to 2018 and the vice-chancellor of Germany from 2013 to 2018. He was Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germa ...

. Between 2014 and 2018 Hardt was the government's coordinator for transatlantic cooperation at the

. While he lost his direct mandate in

2021 German federal election Federal elections were held in Germany on 26 September 2021 to elect the members of the 20th Bundestag. State elections in Berlin and Mecklenburg-Vorpommern were also held. Incumbent chancellor Angela Merkel, first elected in 2005, chose not ...

, he still gained a seat in parliament via the party list. In the current legislative period he serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and as deputy on the Committee on the Affairs of the

as well as the Sub-Committee on the United Nations, International Organizations and Civil Crisis Prevention. On the European level, Hardt is a member of the Board of the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian-democratic, conservative, and liberal-conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties. Founded by primarily ...

Other activities

* German Israel Association, Member of the Board (since 2022) *

German Institute for International and Security Affairs The German Institute for International and Security Affairs (german: Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik; SWP) is a German think tank in international relations and security studies. A semi-official organization with close links to the federal gov ...

(SWP), Member of the Council *

German Council on Foreign Relations The German Council on Foreign Relations (german: Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik e. V. (DGAP)) is Germany's national foreign policy network and policy research institute. As an independent, private, non-partisan and non-profit org ...

(DGAP), Member of the Steering Committee

Political positions

In June 2017, Hardt voted against naming same-sex civil unions marriages.

same-sex marriage Same-sex marriage, also known as gay marriage, is the marriage of two people of the same sex or gender. marriage between same-sex couples is legally performed and recognized in 33 countries, with the most recent being Mexico, constituting ...

. Ahead of the Christian Democrats’

leadership election A leadership election is a political contest held in various countries by which the members of a political party determine who will be the leader of their party. Generally, any political party can determine its own rules governing how and when a l ...

in 2018, he publicly endorsed

Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer (; Kramp; born 9 August 1962), sometimes referred to by her initials of AKK, is a retired German politician who served as Minister of Defence from 2019 to 2021 and as Leader of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) from ...

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. Ever since the Russian invasion in Ukraine Jürgen Hardt has demanded the delivery of heavy weapons to the Ukrainian government. Prior to the invasion, he was in favour of equipping the Ukrainian military with defensive weapons and a more decisive stance against Russia's aggression.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hardt, Jurgen 1963 births Living people Members of the Bundestag for North Rhine-Westphalia Politicians from Wuppertal Members of the Bundestag 2017–2021 Members of the Bundestag 2013–2017 Members of the Bundestag 2009–2013 Members of the Bundestag for the Christian Democratic Union of Germany