What was the position of Christian Lindner from Oct 2009 to May 2012?
Christian Lindner Christian Wolfgang Lindner ( born 7 January 1979 ) is a German politician , member of the Bundestag , and leader of the liberal Free Democratic Party of Germany ( FDP ) . Early life and education . Christian Lindner was born in Wuppertal , Germany . His father Wolfgang Lindner is a teacher of mathematics and computer science at the Städtisches Gymnasium in Wermelskirchen . After graduating from Gymnasium in 1998 and an alternative civilian service , Christian Lindner studied political science at the University of Bonn from 1999 to 2006 . After eleven semesters he acquired the academic degree of Master of Arts ( MA ) . In his masters thesis at the Institute of Political Science , he dealt with the topic : tax competition and revenue sharing . Can the financial constitution be reformed? . In 2006 , he began writing his dissertation under supervision from political science professor Frank Decker , which he has so far not completed due to his political activities . While studying Lindner undertook his National Service obligations as a reserve officer in the Air Force . In 2002 , he was promoted to First lieutenant ( Oberleutnant ) in the Reserve . In 2008 he was a liaison officer to the state command Landeskommando of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia in Düsseldorf and since September 2011 he has held the rank of Captain ( Hauptmann ) in the Reserve . Early political career . Lindner joined the FDP in 1995 . He has been a member of the Executive Board of the FDP in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia since 1998 and became Secretary General in 2004 ( until February 2010 ) . At the May 2000 election for the Landtag of North Rhine-Westphalia , the 21-year old Lindner was elected , becoming the youngest MP in the history of the state parliament of North Rhine-Westphalia . Lindner was from 2000 initially spokesman for Intergenerational Affairs , Family and Integration and then from 2005 to 2009 was also vice chairman of the FDP parliamentary group in the parliament and spokesman for Innovation , Science and Technology . In 2007 he also became a member of the Executive Board of the FDP on federal level . From 2009 Lindner served as a member of the German Bundestag . In the negotiations to form a coalition government following the 2009 federal elections , he was part of the FDP delegation in the working group on families , integration of immigrants and culture , led by Maria Böhmer and Hans-Joachim Otto . From December 2009 until his surprise resignation in December 2011 , Lindner was also Secretary General of the FDP on federal level , largely under the leadership of party chairman Guido Westerwelle and later under Philipp Rösler as Westerwelle had to resign . Lindners resignation was caused by an internal party vote which had been forced by a group centered around the Eurosceptic FDP parliamentarian Frank Schäffler to determine the FDPs future course on questions pertaining to the European Stability Mechanism ( ESM ) . Lindner was later chosen to serve as Chairman of the NRW FDP in the 2012 state election of North Rhine-Westphalia , succeeding Daniel Bahr . In the election , the FDP received 8.6% of the vote , surpassing all expectations at the time as the party had been fighting overall the country to reach the minimum representation of 5% for years and was losing representation in several states . Following the partys victory at that election he was elected Parliamentary leader of the FDP in the NRW Landtag , succeeding Gerhard Papke on 15 May 2012 , and worked in the opposition . In March 2013 , he was elected one of Rösler’s deputies , alongside Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger and Holger Zastrow . FDP Chairman . Linder was elected the new chairman of the FDP following the resignation of Chairman Philipp Rösler after the 2013 German federal elections in which the FDP failed to clear the 5% hurdle to enter the Bundestag for the first time since 1949 . Ahead of the 2014 European elections , Lindner and Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte served as ‘mediators’ between Olli Rehn and Guy Verhofstadt , the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe’s candidates for the presidency of the European Commission ; eventually , the candidates agreed to jointly lead the ALDE’s campaign for elections , with Verhofstadt running to succeed José Manuel Barroso . At the time , Linder was widely regarded to support Rehn . Lindner was a FDP delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2017 , where he endorsed the governments candidate Frank-Walter Steinmeier . That same year , he led his partys successful campaign for the 2017 state elections of North Rhine-Westphalia , which resulted in the FDP joining the state government of incoming Minister-President Armin Laschet . Lindner himself did not take a position in the new government because of his aim to lead the FDP back to the Bundestag in September 2017 , which he achieved with a result of 10.7% . After that success he was elected leader of the FDP parliamentary group in the Bundestag . In October 2017 , Angela Merkels CDU and Katrin Göring-Eckardts and Cem Özdemirs Greens started negotiations with the FDP to form a government , in which Lindner was widely seen as the future Minister of Finance , as the CDU had even nominated the former Minister Wolfgang Schäuble as President of the Bundestag to make place for the FDP . Such a coalition was the only realistic possibility to form a government ( except for a Grand coalition ) but had almost never been used before on any regional level in Germany . In November 2017 , after midnight , Lindner and his party left the already prolonged negotiations after four unsuccessful weeks , which led to the longest government formation in German history and finally in March 2018 once more to a Grand Coalition with the SPD , which had previously rejected any participation in the new government . Other activities . - Borussia Dortmund , Member of the Business Advisory Board ( since 2018 ) - Aktive Bürgerschaft , Member of the Board of Trustees - Friedrich Naumann Foundation , Member of the Board of Trustees - ZDF , Member of the Television Board - Heinrich Heine University ( HHU ) , Institut für Deutsches und Internationales Parteienrecht und Parteienforschung , Member of the Board of Trustees - Deutsche AIDS-Stiftung , Member of the Board of Trustees - Walther Rathenau Institute , Member of the Advisory Board - Deutsche Nationalstiftung , Member of the Senate - NRW Foundation , Member of the Board of Trustees - Captain in the German Air Forces reserve - Rotary International , Member Political positions . Entrepreneurship . In early 2015 , an impassioned response to heckling by Lindner , defending entrepreneurs and startup culture made it onto newspaper front pages and became one of the most watched political speeches in months . Lindner was speaking before the state legislature in North Rhine-Westphalia about the importance of entrepreneurship and how failed entrepreneurs deserve a second chance when a Social Democratic member in the audience heckled : “That [ failure ] is something you have experience in.” That was a reference to an Internet company co-founded by Lindner that failed after the dot-com bubble burst in the early 2000s . Lindner responded with a 2½-minute speech . “If one succeeds , one ends up in the sights of the Social Democratic redistribution machinery and , if one fails , one can be sure of derision and mockery,” he responded , also pointing out that this particular member preferred to have a secure job in public service for his entire life , rather than daring to found a company , and how the message of that heckling attempt was the total opposite of what had been announced just minutes earlier by the president of the state legislature ( who happened to be an SPD member , just like the heckler ) . Bild , the highest-circulation daily newspaper in Germany , praised Lindner on its front page . The Berlin daily Tagesspiegel said the rant offered a welcome contrast to the “persistent fog of alternative-less Merkelism” that characterized debate in the Bundestag . What they were referring to was the situation that because of the narrow defeats of the FDP and the AfD the opposition in the Bundestag only included left parties . So , many policies of Merkels government directly came from their centre-left coalition partner SPD or were at least negotiated and harmonised with them , and then only left parties reacted on them , who usually criticized that those policies were not enough and advocated for more investment into them or stronger policies but did not oppose them on a principal basis . Financial policy . Shortly after the 2017 elections , Lindner ruled out taking on new debt to manage the balancing act of cutting income taxes and increasing investment on digital infrastructure . He criticized outgoing Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble for not being tough enough on Greece and not cutting income taxes for middle-class workers . Personal life . In 2011 , Lindner married journalist Dagmar Rosenfeld ; they had started dating in 2009 . On 19 April 2018 they announced their separation . In 2018 he started dating journalist Franca Lehfeldt . External links . - Landtag NRW - Abgeordneter Christian Lindner ( German ) - Lindners personal website ( mostly in German )