On November 4, the ACG will host a breakfast briefing with Sigmar Gabriel, former Foreign Minister, former Vice Chancellor, and Chairman of Atlantik-Brücke.
Sigmar Gabriel has been Chairman of Atlantik-Brücke e.V. since June 2019. He was the Leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 2009 to 2017, which made him the party’s longest-serving leader since Willy Brandt. Before leaving politics in 2018, he held three respective positions at the level of Federal Minister: In addition to serving as Vice-Chancellor of Germany (2013-2018), Sigmar Gabriel was Minister for Foreign Affairs (2017-2018), Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy (2013-2017), and Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety (2005-2009).
In 2005, he was first elected to the Bundestag representing Salzgitter-Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony – and remained a member of Parliament until 2018. Earlier in his career, he served as Minister-President of Lower Saxony from 1999 to 2003. In the 1990s, he was Chairman of the Environmental Committee in Lower Saxony’s Parliament and a member of the SPD Executive Committee. In the 1980s, Sigmar Gabriel, who is certified as a high school teacher, assumed various responsibilities in adult education and was elected to Lower Saxony’s Parliament. He has been active in politics since 1976, when he joined a socialist youth organization.