Germany: Who is CDU parliamentary leader Jens Spahn?
Key takeaways
- CDU firebrand, ex-health minister, and leader of his party's parliamentary group, Jens Spahn has been dogged by controversy.
- https://p.dw.com/p/5DK28Jens Spahn is the conservative CDU's parliamentary leader Image: Thilo Schmuelgen/REUTERSAdvertisement Despite being still only 45, Jens Spahn has a tumultuous career behind him.
- It's a job previously held by his CDU colleagues Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel, and Friedrich Merz, and it seems reasonable to assume that Spahn harbors ambitions to one day follow those figures into the chancellery.
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CDU firebrand, ex-health minister, and leader of his party's parliamentary group, Jens Spahn has been dogged by controversy. But his ambition is undimmed.
https://p.dw.com/p/5DK28Jens Spahn is the conservative CDU's parliamentary leader Image: Thilo Schmuelgen/REUTERSAdvertisement Despite being still only 45, Jens Spahn has a tumultuous career behind him. Germany's COVID-era health minister — a job that left him under investigation over misuse of public money — was on Tuesday re-elected leader of the parliamentary group of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and their Bavarian allies the Christian Social Union (CSU), with a resounding 85% of the vote.
It's a job previously held by his CDU colleagues Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel, and Friedrich Merz, and it seems reasonable to assume that Spahn harbors ambitions to one day follow those figures into the chancellery. Indeed, Spahn was once an opponent to Merz in the battle to succeed Merkel as CDU leader — though they both ended up losing out to her preferred candidate, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer.