With Bärbel Bas, the SPD is making a largely unknown health politician as the next President of the Bundestag. As little as the first impression of the 53-year-old may be, the path that led Bas to the top of the country is just as exciting.
After she made the leap to the second highest office in the country, the question suddenly arises why Bärbel Bas has not been at the forefront of German politics for some time: The Duisburg woman, little known to the general public, is likely to be the next President of the German Bundestag. On Tuesday, the health politician is to be elected to the second highest office in terms of protocol after that of the Federal President at the suggestion of the SPD. With the 53-year-old, a social democrat par excellence comes into office that the Bundestag has not seen for a long time.
Bas grew up in a simple family in Duisburg, together with three brothers and two sisters. When she wants to start her life, the big decline is just beginning in the Ruhr area: a decades-long transformation process away from coal, which costs jobs and tears up families. During this time Bas graduated from secondary school in 1984 with a technical college entrance qualification and then went to a technical college for technology. However, it does not work out with the desired training as a technical draftswoman. Finally, after 80 unsuccessful applications, Bas begins an apprenticeship as an office assistant.
The last member of the Bundestag without a high school diploma was Richard Stücklen around 40 years ago. The CSU politician had worked as an electrician before his distance learning. The last President of the Bundestag without a high school diploma was the Social Democrat Annemarie Renger, the first woman to head the Bonn Parliament. Because of her SPD parental home, she had not been able to obtain university entrance qualification during the Nazi era.
Duisburg instead of Cologne
With Bas, after the fine spirits Wolfgang Schäuble, Norbert Lammers and Wolfgang Thierse, there is again a politician who is “close to the people” in the presidential seat. Bas played football in her youth – as a left wing, of course – and is still associated with women’s football and MSV Duisburg to this day. Her hobby motorcycling is currently dormant. Her favorite books are the thrillers by Stieg Larsson and Stephen King. Favorite dishes: beef fillet and curry sausage. Bas can relax while surfing the Internet and sipping a glass of Pinot Gris. So it can be seen from her self-portrayal that Bas does not take himself too seriously.
It is not a political lightweight, even if there was rumor in the Bundestag after the SPD parliamentary group leader Rolf Mützenich had expressed an interest in the Schäuble successor, which was popular beyond the parliamentary group. If the SPD, with Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier and the likely new Federal Chancellor Olaf Scholz, had not already had two men in top positions, the Cologne Mützenich, who impresses with his manners and experience, would have won the bid. Instead, the election proposal of the SPD parliamentary group leadership moved on to Duisburg.
Via the works council in the SPD
It is not a coincidence, Bas often achieves her success through detours: She made a career with her trainer, the Duisburger Verkehrsgesellschaft, after starting there in the company health insurance fund. She trained as a social security clerk, eventually studied human resource management economist and became head of department at BKK futur. Parallel to her professional advancement, Bas became involved in the SPD, where she found her way in 1988 through works council work. Bas took on various offices in the SPD sub-district of Duisburg and finally moved into the Bundestag in 2009. There Bas was re-elected this summer with around 40 percent of the first votes.
“I know Bärbel Bas from the North Rhine-Westphalian SPD as a strong woman who always has an open ear and can still assert herself,” says today’s Juso chairwoman Jessica Rosenthal to ntv.de. “I am impressed by your biography.” In fact, the SPD was still quite a men’s club in the 80s and 90s, especially in North Rhine-Westphalia. Bas also learned how the party works at the grassroots level from her future husband: Siegfried Ambrosius was managing director of the Duisburg subdistrict for 39 years. In September last year, Ambrosius died unexpectedly at the age of 78 as a result of a hospital infection.
Even without this stroke of fate, 2020 would have been challenging for Bas: Bas, who belongs to the parliamentary left, i.e. the group of left-wing SPD members, was fully occupied with the pandemic as deputy group leader for health, education and research. As a health politician, she is less well known than Karl Lauterbach, who also belongs to the NRW state group of the SPD. As a specialist politician, she made a name for herself in the Bundestag all the more.
“A reliable, absolutely decent person”
Former Bundestag Vice President Ulla Schmidt also attributes the fact that Bas has hardly become known to a wider audience because Bas sometimes appears cautious and is not very vain. In fact, both her speeches in the Bundestag plenary and discussions with journalists are primarily factual and focused on the topic.
Bas and the former Federal Minister of Health Schmidt sat together on the board of the NRW regional group. “She is a reliable, absolutely decent person,” said Schmidt happily about her party’s decision and praised her: “Bärbel Bas is a hands-on and very clearly structured woman who does not make a fuss, who can work in a team and also lead.”
The step to the top of the Bundestag is still a huge one: In addition to the responsibility for administration and police in the Bundestag, there is also the task of external representation. The President of the Bundestag represents the Federal Republic of Germany vis-à-vis foreign delegations. He or she must preserve Parliament’s reputation and protect it from outside attacks – also very tangible, such as from hacker attacks.
In the coming legislative period, the supervision of building projects by the Bundestag, the planned reform of the electoral law and the question of how to deal with the AfD correctly will again be major issues. It looks like Bas won’t have much time for motorcycling or MSV Duisburg in the future either. Currywurst and Pinot Gris, on the other hand, are likely to remain in it – after all, both enjoy great popularity at events in Berlin’s political scene.