Nils Schmid
Nils Schmid (born 11 July 1973, Trier) is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Since 2018, he has been the SPD parliamentary group's spokesperson for foreign affairs in the German Bundestag. Early life and education. After his Abitur at Eduard Spranger School, Filderstadt, in 1993, Schmid studied law at the University of Tübingen. He worked as a lawyer, and in 2006 he received his doctorate (summa cum laude) (under the supervision of Ferdinand Kirchhof) from Tübingen University. But then he gave up his professional career in favour of politics. Political career. Career  in state politics. Schmid joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 1991 - and in 1993 he was already elected chairman of the Esslingen district of the Young Socialists in the SPD, becoming deputy chairman of the Young Socialists of Baden-Württemberg in 1996. In the 1996 state elections Schmid became a member of the State Parliament of Baden-Württemberg. There he gradually developed into his party's main speaker on financial affairs. He was elected deputy leader of his parliamentary group. In 2009, Schmid succeeded Ute Vogt and became the leader of his party in Baden-Württemberg after winning  an internal poll among its members. Together with Barbara Hendricks, Hannelore Kraft, Heiko Maas and Manuela Schwesig, he co-chaired the SPD’s 2010 national convention in Berlin. Deputy Minister-President, 2011–2016. After the 2011 state elections, lying only one parliamental seat behind the Greens, Schmid became Deputy Minister-President as well as Minister of Financial and Economic Affairs in the government of Minister-President Winfried Kretschmann of Baden-Württemberg. In this capacity, he was also 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. In the negotiations to form a Grand Coalition following the 2013 federal elections, Schmid was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on economic policy, led by Ilse Aigner and Hubertus Heil. Following his party's loss in the 2016 state elections, Schmid's term in government ended in May 2016; he was succeeded by Nicole Hoffmeister-Kraut. Later that year, he announced that he would run in the 2017 national elections. Member of the German Bundestag, 2017–present. Schmid has been a member of the  German Bundestag since September 2017, representing Nürtingen. He serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs, where he is the SPD parliamentary group's spokesperson. Since 2019, he has been a member of the German delegation to the Franco-German Parliamentary Assembly. In the negotiations to form a so-called traffic light coalition of the SPD, the Green Party and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) following the 2021 federal elections, Schmid was part of his party's delegation in the working group on foreign policy, defence, development cooperation and human rights, co-chaired by Heiko Maas, Omid Nouripour and Alexander Graf  Lambsdorff.