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President of German parliament Wolfgang Schäuble appoints members of the German Ethics Council

The President of the German Bundestag, Wolfgang Schäuble, has appointed 21 members to the German Ethics Council as of 30 April 2020. This marks a reshuffling of the Council after several members had reached the end of their terms with the body on 10 April 2020, among them the previous chairman Peter Dabrock. Including three members who were appointed outside the regular cycle between 2016 and 2018, the German Ethics Council now has 24 members.
04/29/2020

In accordance with Section 5, Paragraph 1 Ethics Council Act, the appointment was preceded by the nomination of half of the members at the proposal of the German Bundestag and half at the proposal of the Federal Government. On 23 April 2020, the Bundestag confirmed the candidates proposed by the parliamentary groups CDU/CSU, SPD, Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Die Linke and FDP:

  • Steffen Augsberg (CDU/CSU parliamentary group)
  • Petra Bahr (CDU/CSU parliamentary group)
  • Hans-Ulrich Demuth (Die Linke parliamentary group)
  • Helmut Frister (FDP parliamentary group)
  • Sigrid Graumann (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen parliamentary group)
  • Andreas Kruse (SPD parliamentary group)
  • Andreas Lob-Hüdepohl (CDU/CSU parliamentary group)
  • Julian Nida-Rümelin (SPD parliamentary group)
  • Annette Riedel (SPD parliamentary group)
  • Stephan Rixen (CDU/CSU parliamentary group)
  • Kerstin Schlögl-Flierl (CDU/CSU parliamentary group)

The candidates Axel W. Bauer and Helmut Hahn, nominated by the AfD parliamentary group, were rejected by a majority of the Bundestag.

The Federal Government had already nominated their candidates at the beginning of April:

  • Franz-Josef Bormann
  • Alena Buyx
  • Wolfram Henn
  • Ursula Klingmüller
  • Stephen Kruip
  • Volker Lipp
  • Frauke Rostalski
  • Susanne Schreiber
  • Joseph Schuster
  • Muna Tatari

Three members who were appointed to the German Ethics Council outside the regular rotation between 2016 and 2018 on proposal of the Federal Government will continue to belong to it:

  • Carl Friedrich Gethmann
  • Elisabeth Gräb-Schmidt
  • Judith Simon

The Council, which now has 24 members, is expected to meet for its first plenary session in Berlin on 28 May 2020.

Further information on the members of the Ethics Council is available at https://www.ethikrat.org/en/members.