Marie-Luise "Malu" Dreyer[1] (born 6 February 1961) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has served as the 8th minister-president of Rhineland-Palatinate from 2013 to 2024. She is the first woman to hold this office. She served a one-year-term as president of the Federal Council from 1 November 2016 – 31 October 2017, which made her deputy to the president of Germany while in office. She was the second female president of the Federal Council and the sixth woman holding one of the five highest federal offices in Germany. On 19 June 2024 she announced her resignation from the office of minister-president with effect from 10 July.
From 1989, Dreyer worked at the University of Mainz as a research assistant to Professor Hans-Joachim Pflug.[4] In 1991 she received her appointment as a probationary judge, and later as a prosecutor in Bad Kreuznach.[3]
SPD politician since 1995
Dreyer joined the SPD in 1995 and was mayor of the city of Bad Kreuznach from 1995 to 1997. From 1997 she was head of department for social affairs, youth and housing in the state capital of Mainz.[5] Having served as State Minister of Social Affairs, Labor, Health and Demography since 2002, she was the designated successor of incumbent Minister-president Kurt Beck, who announced his upcoming resignation from the post on 28 September 2012.[6] She was officially elected on 16 January 2013.
As one of Rhineland-Palatinate's representatives at the Bundesrat, Dreyer serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs and on the Committee on European Union Affairs.
In the 2016 state elections, Dreyer managed to convert her high personal approval ratings into a 36.2% win against her opponent Julia Klöckner,[7] improving her party's 2011 result by half a percentage point.[8] In electing Dreyer, the electorate voted to keep the SPD in office for their sixth consecutive term.[9]
During her second term in office, Dreyer's government decided to sell the state's 82.5 percent stake in the loss-making Frankfurt–Hahn Airport in western Germany to Chinese conglomerate HNA Group.[10]
In late 2017, SPD members elected Dreyer to the party's national leadership for the first time as a vice chair.[11] In the negotiations to form a fourth coalition government under Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, she led the working group on health policy, alongside Hermann Gröhe and Georg Nüßlein.
Since 2004, Dreyer has been married to Klaus Jensen [de; fr], a fellow SPD politician and a former mayor of Trier, who had been widowed three years earlier.[20]
She was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1994.[21] This inhibits her physical movement. She made her illness public in 2006, and, when travelling she now always takes her "Rolli" (wheelchair) along, for covering longer distances.[22]
References
^"Malu Dreyer". Munzinger Biographie. Retrieved 5 February 2022.