Mayor
What was the position of Stephan Weil from 2006 to 2013?
Stephan Weil Stephan Weil ( born 15 December 1958 ) is a German politician and the leader of the Social Democratic Party in Lower Saxony . On 20 January 2013 , the SPD and the Green party won the 2013 Lower Saxony state election by one seat . On 19 February 2013 , he was elected Minister President of Lower Saxony with the votes of SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens . From 1 November 2013 until 31 October 2014 he was President of the Bundesrat and ex officio deputy to the President of Germany . In November 2017 , he was again elected Minister President with the votes of SPD and CDU . Early life and education . Weil has lived in Hanover since 1965 , where he completed the abitur at the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gymnasium . After his community service in 1978 he began a law degree in Göttingen , which he finished with his first state examination in 1983 . He then worked as a lawyer in Hanover , and later a public prosecutor and judge in the Lower Saxony ministry of justice . In 1994 , Weil became a member of the ministerial council of Lower Saxony . Political career . In his early years , Weil served as chairman of the SPD Jusos in Hanover . From 1997 until late October 2006 he held the office of the city treasurer . Mayor of Hannover , 2006–2013 . In May 2006 he was chosen as the SPD candidate for the Hanover mayoral election on 10 September 2006 against the CDU politician Dirk Topeffer and Ingrid Wagemann of Alliance 90/The Greens . He won an absolute majority in the first round . He succeeded Herbert Schmalstieg , the mayor of Hanover for 34 years on 1 November 2006 . Weil held the office for 7 years , up to 2013 state election . Due to legal restrictions , Weil was automatically removed from the office of mayor when he became Minister President of Lower Saxony on 19 February 2013 . From 29 January 2008 to 2011 , Weil monthly answered questions from citizens in the TV program Warum Herr Weil ( Why Mr . Weil ) which airs every third Tuesday every month on HR Fernsehen . On 18 September 2011 Weil announced that he would apply for the top candidate of the SPD for the 2013 state election in Lower Saxony . He was elected as the top candidate with 53.3% of votes on 27 September 2011 . On 20 January 2012 he was voted as the chairman of SPD Lower Saxony . In March , Weil was unanimously chosen as the SPD direct candidate for the Hanover-Buchholz constituency . On the state convention in Hameln , Weil placed first with 98.95% . Minister-President of Lower Saxony , 2013–present . Just weeks before the state election , opinion polls indicated that Weil , with the help of the Greens , would easily defeat incumbent Minister-President David McAllister . After McAllisters christian-liberal coalition had been considered to be the winner until late in the night , Weils red-green coalition eventually won the election by a wafer-thin majority , resulting in a narrow majority of just one vote in the state parliament . At the time , his victory constituted the twelfth consecutive setback in a state vote for Chancellor Angela Merkel’s CDU party and therefore was widely interpreted as indicative for the national elections later that year . Early on in his tenure , Weil emphasized consolidating Lower Saxonys finances . As Lower Saxony has a 20 percent stake in Volkswagen ( VW ) , Weil has been an ex-officio member of the companys supervisory board since February 2013 . Within the supervisory board , he serves on the mediation and the nomination committees . Only a few months after Weil took office , Germany won a decisive victory over the European Commission in its bid to preserve state influence at VW , when the European Court of Justice rejected an attempt by the commission to abolish a state veto over key decisions such as factory closures , mergers and acquisitions . In August 2017 , Weil called for parliament to be dissolved a few months early and new elections to be held ( elections had been planned for 2018 ) , after one deputy , Elke Twesten , who had not been nominated for reelection by the Green Party , had quit her party and joined the CDU in the opposition , costing his coalition government its one-seat parliamentary majority . This had endangered Weils position because it hypothetically would have enabled the CDU to elect their leader Bernd Althusmann as Minister President by a motion of no confidence . Prior to the election , the SPD and its coalition had been in very low approval and poll ratings , but following this event the party won the election by a wide margin over the CDU , strongly improving their own result and winning many usual Greens voters for their best result since Gerhard Schröder in 1998 . Nonetheless the red-green coalition lost its majority by two seats due to the weackened Greens , even though the two parties came much nearer to a majority than deemed possible in the latest polls . Despite the rough election campaign between SPD and CDU and heavy accusations over the party affiliation change as a manipulative move to bypass voters and shift the parliamentary majority , Weil succeeded in negotiating and forming a grand coalition with the CDU and Althusmann after the election . In November 2017 , he was again elected Minister President with the votes of SPD and CDU . Role in national politics . In his capacity as Minister-President , Weil was elected vice president of the Bundesrat from 1 March 2013 , and served as President of the Bundesrat from November 2013 to October 2014 . On the Bundesrat , he is a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and deputy chairman of the Committee on European Affairs . In the negotiations to form a Grand Coalition of Chancellor Angela Merkels Christian Democrats ( CDU together with the Bavarian CSU ) and the SPD following the 2013 federal elections , Weil was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on energy policy , led by Peter Altmaier and Hannelore Kraft . Other activities . Corporate boards . - Deutsche Messe AG , chairman of the supervisory board ( 2009–2012 ) - Sparkasse Hannover , chairman of the supervisory board ( 2006–2013 ) Non-profit organizations . - Business Forum of the Social Democratic Party of Germany , member of the political advisory board ( since 2018 ) - Robert Enke Foundation , chairman of the board of trustees - kestnergesellschaft , member of the board of trustees - Freundeskreis Hannover , member of the board of trustees - Deutsches Museum , member of the board of trustees - Hannover Medical School , member of the board of trustees - German Association of Local Utilities ( VKU ) , president ( 2007–2012 ) - Rotary International , member Personal life . In 1987 , Weil married public health expert Rosemarie Kerkow-Weil ( born 1954 ) , the former president of Leibniz University Hannover who teaches at the HAWK Hochschule Hildesheim/Holzminden/Göttingen . They have one son . External links . - Official website - Biography on spd-kibewue.de