Caffier served as State Minister of the Interior (2006–2020) and as Deputy Minister-President of Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania (2011–2020) in the governments of Minister-Presidents
Harald Ringstorff (2006–2008),
Erwin Sellering (2008–2017) and
Manuela Schwesig (2017–2020). As one of the state’s representatives at the
Bundesrat, he chaired its Defence Committee from 2006. In addition, he led the Bundesrat delegation to the
NATO Parliamentary Assembly from 2010 to 2020. He was also a member of the German-Russian Friendship Group set up by the Bundesrat and the
Russian Federation Council. Together with
Stefan Mappus,
Reiner Haseloff,
Frank Henkel,
Peter Hintze,
Julia Klöckner,
Christine Lieberknecht and
Thomas Röwekamp, Caffier co-chaired the CDU’s national convention in
Karlsruhe in 2010. In the negotiations to form a
Grand Coalition of the Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian
CSU) and the
Social Democrats (SPD) following the
2013 federal elections, Caffier was part of the CDU/CSU delegation in the working group on internal and legal affairs, led by
Hans-Peter Friedrich and
Thomas Oppermann. In similar negotiations to form a
coalition government following the
2017 federal elections, he was again part of the working group on internal and legal affairs, this time led by
Thomas de Maizière,
Stephan Mayer and
Heiko Maas. Caffier was a CDU delegate to the
Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the
President of Germany in 2017. In September 2020, Caffier announced that he would not stand in the
2021 Mecklenburg-Vorpommern state election but instead resign from active politics by the end of the legislative term. On 17 November 2020 he resigned from his office as Minister of the Interior. ==Other activities==