Early beginnings Barbara Hendricks has been a member of the SPD since 1972 and has been the president of the SPD party organization for the District of Kleve since 1989. From 1984 to 1989 she was a member of the
District Council ('''') of the
Rural District of Kleve. From 1990 to 2001 she was a member of the party council. From 1987 to 2001 she was a member of the state party executive of the SPD in North Rhine-Westphalia – as from 1996 as treasurer. Since the
1994 elections, Hendricks has been a member of the
Bundestag. In parliament, she served on the Finance Committee from 1994 until 1998. In addition, from October 1995 to November 1998, she was a member of the executive of the SPD parliamentary group, under the leadership of the group’s chairman
Rudolf Scharping. Hendricks was always elected to the Bundestag via the party list of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Since 2001 she has been a member of the SPD (federal) party executive.
Parliamentary State Secretary to the Federal Minister of Finance, 1998–2007 Following the
1998 German federal election, on 27 October 1998 Hendricks was appointed Parliamentary State Secretary to the
Federal Minister of Finance in the cabinet of
Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. From 22 November 2005, Hendricks continued in this office in the
first cabinet of
Chancellor Angela Merkel – meaning that she was a state secretary under three finance ministers:
Oskar Lafontaine,
Hans Eichel, and
Peer Steinbrück. She left this office on 16 November 2007, after being elected federal treasurer of the SPD.
Treasurer of the SPD, 2007–2013 From October 2007, Hendricks served as SPD federal treasurer, a position in which she administered the party-owned media holding Print and Publishing Society (DDVG) with stakes in regional newspapers such as
Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung,
Leipziger Volkszeitung and
Märkische Allgemeine. In the campaign for the
2009 German federal election Hendricks was a member of the "
shadow cabinet" of the SPD candidate for the chancellorship,
Frank-Walter Steinmeier, where she was responsible for consumer affairs. Following the elections, she served on the Committee on Economic Cooperation and Development until 2013. On the committee, she was her parliamentary group’s rapporteur on
heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC);
poverty reduction strategies (PRSP); the
International Monetary Fund (IMF); the
World Bank; and the
European Development Fund (EDF). In the negotiations to form a
coalition government following the
2013 federal elections, Hendricks was part of the 15-member leadership circle chaired by
Angela Merkel,
Horst Seehofer and
Sigmar Gabriel. Until 2014 Hendricks also served as a member of the executive of the SPD Culture Forum, mainly responsible for culture financing.
Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety, 2013–2018 (Africa) From 17 December 2013, Hendricks served as
Federal Minister for the Environment, Nature Conservation, Building and Nuclear Safety in the third cabinet of
Angela Merkel. Hendricks led the German delegations to the
2014 United Nations Climate Change Conference in
Lima and the
2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference in
Paris. In August 2015, she was part of Chancellor Merkel’s delegation to the first joint cabinet meeting of the governments of Germany and
Brazil in
Brasília. In early 2015, Hendricks proposed a new draft law that imposes an outright ban on
fracking for
shale gas in the following years and only allow scientific test drilling under strict conditions to assess the risks and environmental impact. The resulting legislation that passed the cabinet in April 2015 softened her line somewhat, restricting fracking until 2019, after which commercial fracking could only go forward after passing various tough regulatory hurdles. The legislation, however, allows fracking for deep-lying or "tight" gas, a technology that has been used for decades in Germany.
Later career Following the
2017 elections, Hendricks remained in office until 2018 but left with the new
coalition government of
Chancellor Angela Merkel taking over. She joined the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs. In addition to her committee assignments, she served as deputy chairwoman of the Parliamentary Friendship Group for Relations with the
Cono Sur States (Argentina, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay). In February 2021, Hendricks said she would not contest the
2021 elections. ==Other activities==