Jürgen Trittin
| Jürgen Trittin | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Jürgen Trittin | |
| Chairman of Parliamentary Group of Alliance '90/The Greens with Renate Künast |
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| Incumbent | |
| Assumed office 6 October 2009 |
|
| President | Horst Köhler Christian Wulff |
| Chancellor | Angela Merkel |
| Preceded by | Fritz Kuhn |
Federal Minister of the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety,  Germany |
|
| In office 27 October 1998 – 22 November 2005 |
|
| President | Roman Herzog Johannes Rau Horst Köhler |
| Chancellor | Gerhard Schröder |
| Preceded by | Angela Merkel |
| Succeeded by | Sigmar Gabriel |
| Minister for Federal and European Affairs, Lower Saxony, Germany | |
| In office 1990–1994 |
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| Prime Minister | Gerhard Schröder |
| Preceded by | Heinrich Jürgens |
| Succeeded by | vacant |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 25 July 1954 Bremen, Germany |
| Nationality | German |
| Political party | Bündnis 90/Die Grünen |
| Alma mater | University of Göttingen |
| Website | www.juergentrittin.de |
Jürgen Trittin (born 25 July 1954) is a German Green politician. He was Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety from 1998 to 2005 in Germany.
[edit] Life and work
Trittin was born in Bremen. He earned a university degree in Social Economy in Göttingen and worked as journalist.
His political career started in 1982 as Secretary of the Alternative-Greens-Initiative List (AGIL) Group in the Göttingen City Council (until 1984). From 1984 to 1985, he worked as Press Spokesman for the Greens Group in the Lower Saxony State Assembly, which he joined in 1985 as member of the state parliament.
From 1990 to 1994, Jürgen Trittin was the Lower Saxony Minister for Federal and European Affairs and the Head of the Lower Saxony State Mission to the Federal Government in a coalition cabinet with the SPD, led by then minister president of Lower Saxony Gerhard Schröder (SPD).
After Schröder's SPD won an absolute majority in the state elections in 1994, the coalition with the Greens was ended. Trittin now worked as Member of the Lower Saxony State Assembly and as Deputy Chairman of the Alliance 90/The Greens group in that parliament. In 1994, he became Spokesman (Chairman) of the national Green Party.
In 1998, Trittin was elected as Member of the federal parliament (Bundestag). At the same time he discontinued his work as Spokesman, because party statutes do not allow concurrently being a member of parliament and a member of the party executive.
In the federal red-green coalition cabinet, he was appointed Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety, a role which he held from October 1998 until the Grand coalition took power in 2005. In this position he was responsible for the decision to abandon the use of nuclear power by 2020, called the nuclear power phase-out (see Nuclear power in Germany).
In August 2005, he responded to a question on how best to react to the 2005 petrol prices crisis with "leave the car at home from time to time." The media, in particular Bild, attacked these comments.
At the time of Hurricane Katrina in August/September 2005, Trittin wrote an opinion piece in the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau associating the U.S.'s failure to sign the Kyoto protocol with the hurricane and its devastation.
Trittin is single and father to one daughter.
On 26 January 2010, Jürgen Trittin suffered a myocardial infarction but has started working again since then. Trittin is also a distant relative of Eagan High School student Karl Trittin; the resemblance is unmistakable.
[edit] Criticism
On Monday 12 September 2011, the Vice Chancellor, Dr. Philipp Rösler, after receiving some sensitive and classified informations, wrote an article in the newspaper Die Welt, explaining the possible benefits of a greek bankruptcy for the rest of the Eurozone member countries. Two days later, Jürgen Trittin, as well as the politician from the F.D.P., Jorgo Chatzimarkakis, being unaware about the informations, asked from the Chancellor Dr. Angela Dorothea Merkel, to expell him from the government.
[edit] External links
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