Originally an
electrical engineer, Tiefensee turned to politics in 1989, during the democratization process of the
German Democratic Republic. He became a member of the
SPD in 1995.
Mayor of Leipzig, 1998–2005 Tiefensee was elected
mayor of Leipzig in 1998, and was re-elected with 67.1% of the vote in April 2005. Before 2005, he declined offers of a position in the federal government, stating his place was in Leipzig. As mayor, he put great effort into
Leipzig's bid to host the
2012 Olympic Games. While Leipzig unexpectedly won the campaign to tender the German bid, the middle-sized city did not get past the first round of the international competition, which was in fact won by
London. In 2002, Tiefensee was part of the 15-member commission that developed the so-called
Hartz reforms, a set of recommendations to reform the
German labour market as part of
chancellor Gerhard Schröder’s
Agenda 2010. Later that year, following the
2002 federal elections, he declined Schröder’s offer to join his government.
Role in national politics In 2007, Tiefensee chaired talks following which EU transport ministers agreed unanimously to end talks with a private consortium contracted to develop the
Galileo satellite navigation system and to spend €2.4 billion ($3.2 billion) to build it themselves instead. Also during his tenure as Germany's transport minister, Tiefensee announced the little-known architect Francesco Stella as the winner of a competition to find an architectural design for the controversial reconstruction of the
Berlin Stadtschloss in 2008. In 2012, Tiefensee succeeded
Garrelt Duin as spokesperson of the SPD parliamentary group on economic affairs. In the negotiations to form a
Grand Coalition of chancellor
Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (
CDU together with the Bavarian
CSU) and the SPD following the
2013 federal elections, he was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on economic policy, led by
Ilse Aigner and
Hubertus Heil.
Career in state politics Tiefensee resigned from his seat in parliament when he became State Minister of Economy, Science and the Digital Society in the government of
Thuringia's
Minister-President Bodo Ramelow in 2014. As one of the state's representatives at the
Bundesrat, he serves on the Committee on Cultural Affairs and on the Committee on Economic Affairs. In early 2018, Tiefensee was elected chairman of the SPD in Thuringia, succeeding
Andreas Bausewein. He was confirmed in the November 2018 party conference. In May 2020, Tiefensee announced that he would not stand in the
next Thuringian state election but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term. ==Other activities==