President of the Bundesrat Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg
What was the position of Winfried Kretschmann from Nov 2012 to Oct 2013?
Winfried Kretschmann Winfried Kretschmann ( born 17 May 1948 ) is a German politician serving as Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg since 2011 . A member of the Alliance 90/Greens , he was President of the Bundesrat and ex officio deputy to the President of Germany from 2012 to 2013 . He is the first member of the Greens to serve in these offices . Identifying himself as a green conservative , Kretschmann has been associated with both culturally and economically liberal policies . Kretschmann has been a member of the state parliament , the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg , since 1980 , in the constituency of Nürtingen . In 2006 he was the frontrunner in the Baden-Württemberg state election for his party , as he was in the state election on 27 March 2011 . He was also the chairman of his partys parliamentary group . Following the state election of 2011 , Kretschmann was elected on 12 May 2011 by the combined Green-SPD majority in the Landtag to succeed Stefan Mappus as Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg , becoming the first ever Green Minister-President of any German state . Kretschmann has wide personal popularity ; if it were possible to elect the Minister-President directly during the Baden-Württemberg election of March 2016 , Kretschmann would have won an outright majority according to polls ; he was even favored by 45% of CDU supporters . Kretschmann was re-elected in May 2016 as Minister-President while leading a new coalition with the Christian Democrats . On 12 October 2012 he was elected President of the German Bundesrat for the term from 1 November 2012 to 31 October 2013 . This was the first time since 1953 , and only the second time ever , that the President was not drawn from the ranks of either the CDU/CSU or the SPD . Early life and education . Kretschmann was born at Spaichingen in Baden-Württemberg . His parents were expellees from the mostly Roman Catholic region of Ermland ( East Prussia ) after World War II . He grew up on the rural Swabian Alb ( southern Baden-Württemberg ) . Kretschmann attended a Catholic boarding school in Sigmaringen and passed his Abitur in Riedlingen . Following his military service , he studied to be a teacher of biology and chemistry ( later ethics ) at the University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart , graduating in 1977 . Political career . Early beginnings . From 1973 to 1975 Kretschmann was active in the Communist League of West Germany . He later denounced this orientation towards the revolutionary positions of the German student movement as a political misapprehension ; today he is more ecologically oriented and counted among the members of the more conservative wing of the Greens . After three years as a school teacher at Sigmaringen , Kretschmann went into politics . He is one of the founding members of the Baden-Württemberg section of the German Green Party ( at Sindelfingen on 30 September 1979 ) . In 1980 , Kretschmann was for the first time elected into the Landtag , the state parliament , and a first stint of his chairmanship of his partys parliamentary group followed from 1983 to 1985 . In 1985 he left Stuttgart to work in Hessen at the ministry of environment , then run by party colleague Joschka Fischer for two years . In 1988 , Kretschmann returned to Baden-Württemberg , being re-elected into the Landtag in 1988 . He lost his seat in 1992 , but returned – after four years back as a teacher – in 1996 and held his seat in 2001 and 2006 . In 2002 , he was again elected chairman of his partys parliamentary group . Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg , 2011-present . In the 2011 state elections , amid a surge in support for the anti-nuclear Greens following the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster in Japan , a coalition government of Greens and Social Democrats won over the former predominating conservative CDU Party ; Kretschmann was elected as the new state Minister-President of Baden-Württemberg . He ran on a platform that called for shutting down nuclear power plants , overhauling a public school system the Greens see as elitist , and imposing speed limits on Autobahns . Also , Kretschmann is widely regarded as having benefited from his partys opposition to Stuttgart 21 , a massive development project in Baden-Württembergs capital . Kretschmann’s election ended 58 years of uninterrupted rule in Baden-Württemberg by the Christian Democratic Union party . As Minister-President , Kretschmann is a member of the German-French Friendship Group set up by the German Bundesrat and the French Senate as well as of the German-Russian Friendship Group set up in cooperation with the Russian Federation Council . When German Chancellor Angela Merkel held preliminary talks to sound out possible common ground with both the Green Party in an attempt to form a coalition government following the 2013 elections , Kretschmann was part of the Greens’ delegation . In the 2016 state elections , Kretschmann led the Green Party to a historic 30% , thus coming three points ahead of the Christian Democrats . For the first time in any German regional election , the Greens emerged the strongest single party in the state . Kretschmann was confirmed as leader of a coalition government of Greens and Christian Democrats in May 2016 . As the Green Partys only Minister-President , Kretschmann plays a crucial role to organize the partys informal coordination committee for the Bundesrat . On July 2020 , Kretschmann-led government of Baden-Württemberg banned full-face coverings burqas , niqabs for all school children . the rule will apply to primary and secondary education . Kretschmann said that full-face veiling did not belong in a free society . Following the ongoing success of the Greens in the 2021 state elections , Kretschmann was subsequently re-elected for serving a third term as minister president on May 12 , 2021 . Political positions . Kretschmann belongs to the more Realpolitik-oriented , centrist wing of the Green Party , and has been characterised as holding economically liberal , pro-business views . He identifies as a green conservative . His business-friendly approach to policy has caused him to clash with his party on more than one occasion . While he shared his party’s official position of favoring an alliance with the SPD after the 2013 federal elections , he repeatedly criticized its campaign . He objected to the Greens’ election platform of tax increases , warning the leadership in a public letter to avoid any move that would be detrimental to business . When Bavaria filed a lawsuit in the Federal Constitutional Court in 2012 , asking the judges to back their call for an overhaul of the German system of financial transfers from wealthier states ( such as Bavaria and Baden-Württemberg ) to the countrys weaker economies , Kretschmann decided that his state would not back the lawsuit and instead urged reform via negotiations between all the states . Kretschmann has in the past been vocal about climate change policies . In May 2015 , he joined Governor Jerry Brown of California and other international leaders from various states and provinces in signing the Under2 MOU , a non-binding climate change agreement in Sacramento , California . At the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference , Kretschmann and Brown convened in Paris during the talks to attract more supporters among governors , mayors and other leaders of “subnational” governments for stronger commitments to reducing emissions . During the coronavirus crisis Kretschmann clashed with environmentalists as he supported stimulus subsidies for the purchase of cars with relatively efficient combustion engines . Kretschmann stated that he wants to keep refugees who commit crimes in groups away from major cities and distribute them in the country , saying that the idea of sending some of them into the pampas was not wrong , and adding , To put it bluntly , the most dangerous thing that human evolution has produced is hordes of young men . He claimed that the 2018 Freiburg gang rape was a terrible example of this . Other activities . - Central Committee of German Catholics , Member - Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Freiburg , Member of the Council - Academy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart , Member of the Board of Trustees - Deutsches Museum , Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Trustees Personal life . Kretschmann is a Catholic . He is married with Gerlinde , has three children and lives in Sigmaringen . Literature . - Henkel , Peter , Henkel-Waidhofer , Johanna : Winfried Kretschmann – Das Porträt . Verlag Herder , Freiburg 2011 , . - Kretschmann , Winfried : Reiner Wein : Politische Wahrheiten in Zeiten knapper Ressourcen . Winfried Kretschmann im Gespräch mit Johanna Henkel-Waidhofer und Peter Henkel . Herder Verlag , Freiburg/Basel/Wien 2012 , .