Career in national politics Wissing entered the FDP in
1998. He became a member of the German
Bundestag in 2004 when he took the seat of Marita Sehn who had died in a car accident. From 2004 until 2013, he served on the Finance Committee; he chaired the committee from 2009 until 2013 (during the
Second Merkel cabinet, a CDU/CSU and FDP coalition). From 2011 until 2013, he also served as one of his parliamentary group's deputy chairpersons, under the leadership of chairman
Rainer Brüderle. In the negotiations to form a
coalition government of the FDP and the Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian
CSU) following the
2009 federal elections, Wissing was part of the FDP delegation in the working group on financial policy and taxes, led by
Thomas de Maizière und
Hermann Otto Solms.
Career in state politics On the state level, Wissing became chairman of the party's branch in Rhineland-Palatinate in 2011 succeeding Rainer Brüderle. He led the Free Democratic Party back into the Landtag of Rhineland-Palatinate in the
March 2016 state election. After coalition negotiations Wissing became Deputy Minister President and State Minister for Economics, Transport, Agriculture and Viticulture in the
Second Dreyer cabinet. In 2020 FDP leader
Christian Lindner nominated Wissing to serve as General Secretary of the party, succeeding
Linda Teuteberg. Subsequently, Wissing announced his switch for state politics to the federal arena, announcing his candidacy for the Bundestag in the
September 2021 German federal election.
Minister of Digital Affairs and Transport, 2021–2025 On 24 November 2021, Wissing was nominated by the Federal Executive Committee of the FDP for the post of
Minister for Transport and Digital Affairs in the designated federal government. He took office as Transport Minister on 8 December as the
Scholz cabinet (the first
Traffic light coalition) was sworn in. On 24 February 2022, Russian forces began their
invasion of Ukraine. Two days later, Wissing ordered the blocking of German airspace for Russian aircraft. In July 2022, Wissing publicly presented his plans to meet
emissions reductions targets in the German transport sector, shortly before the deadline. The scientific committee tasked with assessing the sufficiency of his proposed measures declared the plan entirely insufficient and decided not even to evaluate it, given there was "nothing to be evaluated". In March 2023, Wissing participated in the first joint cabinet meeting of the governments of Germany and Japan in
Tokyo, chaired by Chancellor Scholz and
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida. In October 2023, he joined the first joint cabinet retreat of the German and French governments in Hamburg, chaired by
Olaf Scholz and
President Emmanuel Macron. In November 2024 during
government crisis when the FDP withdrew support from the governing coalition, Wissing announced that he would leave the FDP in order to continue his term as Transport Minister. He was additionally appointed
Minister of Justice on 7 November 2024 after the incumbent FDP minister
Marco Buschmann was dismissed by
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier upon Scholz' request. == Other activities ==