Barbara Hendricks

Barbara Anne Hendricks (born 29 April 1952) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who served as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2013 until 2018.

After obtaining her Abitur in 1970 at the Johanna Sebus Gymnasium in Kleve, Hendricks studied History and Social Sciences in Bonn, passing the Staatsexamen examination for high school teachers in 1976.

Barbara Hendricks has been a member of the SPD since 1972 and has been the president of the SPD party organization for the District of Kleve since 1989.

She then worked for the Association for Student Affairs until 1978.

In 1980 she was awarded a doctorate based on a thesis entitled Die Entwicklung der Margarineindustrie am unteren Niederrhein [The development of the margarine industry on the lower Rhine].

After that, until 1981, she was a deputy press secretary at the press office of the Bundestag parliamentary party of the SPD.

From 1984 to 1989 she was a member of the District Council (Kreistag) of the Rural District of Kleve.

From 1987 to 2001 she was a member of the state party executive of the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia – as from 1996 as treasurer.

She was then press secretary of the minister of finance of the state of North Rhine-Westfalia until 1990.

From 1990 to 2001 she was a member of the party council.

In 1991 she was appointed Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of the Environment, Spatial Planning and Agriculture of the State of North Rhine-Westfalia.

Since the 1994 elections, Hendricks has been a member of the Bundestag.

In parliament, she served on the Finance Committee from 1994 until 1998.

In addition, from October 1995 to November 1998, she was a member of the executive of the SPD parliamentary group, under the leadership of the group’s chairman Rudolf Scharping.

Hendricks was always elected to the Bundestag via the party list of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Following the 1998 German federal election, on 27 October 1998 Hendricks was appointed Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Finance in the cabinet of Chancellor Gerhard Schröder.

Since 2001 she has been a member of the SPD (federal) party executive.

From 22 November 2005, Hendricks continued in this office in the first cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel – meaning that she was a state secretary under three finance ministers: Oskar Lafontaine, Hans Eichel, and Peer Steinbrück.

From 2007 to 2013, Hendricks was Federal Treasurer of the SPD, and from 1998 to 2007 she was Parliamentary Secretary of State at the Federal Ministry of Finance.

Barbara Hendricks was born in Kleve.

She left this office on 16 November 2007, after being elected federal treasurer of the SPD.

From October 2007, Hendricks served as SPD federal treasurer, a position in which she administered the party-owned media holding Print and Publishing Society (DDVG) with stakes in regional newspapers such as Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung, Leipziger Volkszeitung and Märkische Allgemeine.

In the campaign for the 2009 German federal election Hendricks was a member of the "shadow cabinet" of the SPD candidate for the chancellorship, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, where she was responsible for consumer affairs.

Following the elections, she served on the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development until 2013.

On the committee, she was her parliamentary group’s rapporteur on heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC); poverty reduction strategies (PRSP); the International Monetary Fund (IMF); the World Bank; and the European Development Fund (EDF).

In the negotiations to form a coalition government following the 2013 federal elections, Hendricks was part of the 15-member leadership circle chaired by Angela Merkel, Horst Seehofer and Sigmar Gabriel.

From 17 December 2013, Hendricks served as Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety in the third cabinet of Angela Merkel.

Until 2014 Hendricks also served as a member of the executive of the SPD Culture Forum, mainly responsible for culture financing.

Hendricks led the German delegations to the 2014 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Lima and the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Paris.

In August 2015, she was part of Chancellor Merkel’s delegation to the first joint cabinet meeting of the governments of Germany and Brazil in Brasília.

In early 2015, Hendricks proposed a new draft law that imposes an outright ban on fracking for shale gas in the following years and only allow scientific test drilling under strict conditions to assess the risks and environmental impact.

The resulting legislation that passed the cabinet in April 2015 softened her line somewhat, restricting fracking until 2019, after which commercial fracking could only go forward after passing various tough regulatory hurdles.

The legislation, however, allows fracking for deep-lying or "tight" gas, a technology that has been used for decades in Germany.

By early 2016, Hendricks entered in talks with various stakeholders on drawing up a plan over how to exit coal-fired power generation in Germany, later named 'Climate Action Plan 2050'.

Following the 2017 elections, Hendricks remained in office until 2018 but left with the new coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel taking over.

She joined the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs.

In addition to her committee assignments, she served as deputy chairwoman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the Cono Sur States (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay).

In February 2021, Hendricks said she would not contest the 2021 elections.

Hendricks is openly lesbian.

She is Catholic.