Former SPD leader Andrea Nahles becomes advisor to Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights Nicolas Schmit

28.7.2020

Question for written answer E-004442/2020
to the Commission
Rule 138
Christine Anderson (ID), Guido Reil (ID), Maximilian Krah (ID), Bernhard Zimniok (ID), Markus Buchheit (ID), Gunnar Beck (ID)

Andrea Nahles was Employment Minister in the grand coalition from 2013 to 2017, after which she became the first female Chair of the parliamentary group and then the party in the long history of the SPD. At the beginning of June 2019 she was forced to resign from her positions as a result of the poor performance of the SPD in the elections to the European Parliament and criticism from within the party. And on 1 November 2019 she finally resigned from her post in the Bundestag. [1]

Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights Nicolas Schmit has now announced on Twitter than Andrea Nahles will work for him as a special advisor [2] .

• 1.What precisely will her tasks be, and on what pay grade will she be employed?
• 2.Was the position of special advisor to the Commissioner for Jobs and Social Rights already in existence? If so, who was the previous occupant? If not, was the position created so that it could be filled by Andrea Nahles?
• 3.Does the Commission have any concerns about the compatibility of the post of ‘special advisor’ to a Commissioner in Brussels and an ‘external activity’ as President of Germany’s Federal Posts and Telecommunications Agency [3] ?

• [1] https://www.n-tv.de/politik/Neue-Aufgabe-fuer-Andrea-Nahles-in-Bruessel-article21904069.html
• [2] https://twitter.com/NicolasSchmitEU/status/1281590655836356611
• [3] This sub-department of the Ministry of Finance has some 1 400 staff and is responsible for the pensions of officials from the former state-owned Deutsche Bundespost .