Karin Prien

Karin Prien (born 26 June 1965) is a German lawyer and politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) who has been serving as State Minister of Education, Science and Culture of Schleswig-Holstein in the government of Minister-President Daniel Günther since 28 June 2017. She was previously a member of the Hamburg Parliament.

Karin Prien
Schleswig-Holstein Minister of Education, Science and Culture
Assumed office
28.06.2017
Appointed byDaniel Günther
Member of the Hamburgische Bürgerschaft
In office
2011–2017
Personal details
Born26.06.1965
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Nationality Germany
Political party
CDU
CDU
Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU)
Alma materUniversity of Bonn
OccupationLawyer

Since 2022, Prien has been one of four deputy chairs of the CDU, under the leadership of chairman Friedrich Merz.[1]

Early life and education

Born in Amsterdam, Prien is of Jewish origin and first grew up in the Netherlands, where her maternal grandparents had fled in the early 1930s before the emergence of National Socialism in Germany.[2] She later moved to Germany.

After graduation (Abitur) in 1984 in Rhineland-Palatinate, Prien studied law and political science in Bonn. From 1986 to 1989, she was a student assistant of Friedbert Pflüger, then the press secretary of the Federal President Richard von Weizsäcker. She took the first Staatsexamen in 1989, which was followed by the LL.M. after postgraduate studies in Amsterdam in 1991 and the second Staatsexamen in Celle in 1994.

Early career

Since 1994, Prien has been an independent lawyer specializing in commercial and insolvency law in Hanover, Leipzig and Hamburg. Since 2008, she has been a certified lawyer for commercial and corporate law, and also a mediator since 2011.[3][4]

Political career

Early beginnings

Prien became a member of the CDU in 1981. She was from 2004 to April 2012 deputy CDU local chairwoman in Blankenese, from 2006 Deputy District Chairwoman in the district association Altona-Elbvororte, and since 2010 a member of the CDU state executive committee. From January 2014 she had been local chairwoman of the CDU in Blankenese, an office she gave to Johann Riekers after her move to Schleswig-Holstein.[5] In addition, Prien is chairwoman of the Jewish Forum of the CDU.

Member of the Hamburg Parliament, 2011-2017

As a candidate of the CDU in her constituency of Blankenese, she was elected to the Hamburg state parliament in 2011 for the first time. She was a political spokeswoman for the CDU parliamentary group and a member of the parliamentary group's leadership.

In the 2015 state election, Prien again won a direct mandate in the constituency of Blankenese with 11.5 percent of the votes. In the parliament, she was a member of the Budget Committee, the Constitution and District Committee, the School Committee and the Committee on Social Affairs, Labor and Integration. She was Deputy Group Chair and Specialist for the School and Constitution of the CDU. In the course of her change to the state government of Schleswig-Holstein, she resigned in June 2017 from the Hamburg Parliament; her parliament mandate was taken over by Wolfhard Ploog.[6][7]

State Minister of Education in Schleswig-Holstein, 2017–present

After formation of a Jamaica coalition of CDU, FDP and Greens in the wake of the 2017 Schleswig-Holstein state election, Prien was appointed Minister of Education, Science and Culture of Schleswig-Holstein on 28 June 2017 and is part of the state government of Minister-President Günther.[8]

In the negotiations to form a fourth coalition government under Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, Prien was part of the working group on education policy, led by Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, Stefan Müller and Hubertus Heil.

Since 17 November 2018 Prien has been one of the four deputy chairs of the CDU Schleswig-Holstein, succeeding State Minister for Justice Sabine Sütterlin-Waack who did not run for reelection.[9][10] Prien supports the CDU-internal group "Union of the Middle," [11][12][13][14] which is regarded as the counterpart of the conservative "value union."[15]

Ahead of the 2021 elections, CDU chairman Armin Laschet included Prien in his eight-member shadow cabinet for the Christian Democrats' campaign.[16]

Prien was nominated by her party as delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2022.[17]

Other activities
  • Nordmetall Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2018)[18]
  • Cultural Foundation of the German States (KdL), Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2017)[19]
  • Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Ex-Officio Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2017)[20]
  • David Ben-Gurion Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees[21]
  • Haus Rissen, Member of the Board of Trustees[22]
  • Stiftung Lesen, Member of the Board of Trustees[23]

Political positions

For the 2021 national elections, Prien endorsed Armin Laschet as the Christian Democrats' joint candidate to succeed Chancellor Angela Merkel.[24]

In early 2022, Prien called for Hans-Georg Maaßen to be expelled from the CDU.[25]

She opposes Gendern, a form of writing in which the three grammatical genders, which are usually represented through different words, are combined by adding special characters within the word.[26][27][28]

Personal life

Prien is married to lawyer Jochen Prien and has three children.[29]

References
  1. Prien als Stellvertreterin von CDU-Chef Merz gewähl Norddeutscher Rundfunk, 22 January 2022.
  2. "Karin Prien: "Da war ich politisch erst mal mausetot"" (in German). Hamburger Abendblatt. 16 April 2016. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
  3. Karin Prien LL.
  4. Wo komme ich her karin-prien.de, retrieved 26 September 2017.
  5. "CDU-Blankenese – Homepage des CDU Ortsverbandes Blankenese" (in German). Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  6. "Designierte Bildungsministerin: Hamburgs CDU verliert eine weitere Frau – WELT". Retrieved 7 July 2017.
  7. Zweikampf in der Hamburger CDU um Prien-Nachfolge.
  8. "Ministerin Karin Prien". schleswig-holstein.de. State of Schleswig-Holstein. Retrieved 27 June 2019.
  9. "Daniel Günther als CDU-Landesvorsitzender wiedergewählt" (in German). Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  10. "SH-Bildungsministerin: Karin Prien will in die Führungsspitze der Nord-CDU | shz.de". Retrieved 4 December 2018.
  11. "Karin Prien und die Union der Mitte" (in German). Kieler Nachrichten. 2 August 2018. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
  12. union-der-mitte.org
  13. Union der Mitte Liberale CDU-Unterstützer von Kramp-Karrenbauer treffen sich in Berlin, von Florian Gathmann, Der Spiegel 3 April 2019.
  14. Liberale CDU-Mitglieder Erstes Treffen der "Union der Mitte", von Robert Roßmann, Süddeutsche Zeitung 3 April 2019.
  15. "CDU erkennt Gruppierungen nicht an" (in German). n-tv. 20 August 2018. Retrieved 27 March 2019.
  16. Fatina Keilani and Christoph Prantner (3 September 2021), Personen statt Positionen: Laschet bringt sein «Zukunftsteam» in Stellung Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
  17. Top 13: Wahl der Mitglieder für die 17. Bundesversammlung State Parliament of Schleswig-Holstein.
  18. Ministerin Karin Prien engagiert sich im Kuratorium Nordmetall Foundation, press release of June 20, 2018.
  19. Board of Trustees Cultural Foundation of the German States (KdL).
  20. Board of Trustees Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival.
  21. Board of Trustees David Ben-Gurion Foundation.
  22. Board of Trustees Haus Rissen.
  23. Board of Trustees Stiftung Lesen.
  24. Florian Gathmann, Kevin Hagen, Christoph Hickmann and Veit Medick (20 April 2021), Erzwungene Abstimmung im CDU-Vorstand: Laschets Gewaltakt Der Spiegel.
  25. Streit über Ex-Verfassungsschutzchef: CDU-Ministerin Prien fordert Parteiausschluss von Maaßen Der Spiegel, 3 January 2022.
  26. NDR. "Prien schickt Gender-Erlass an Schulen - die Grünen zürnen". www.ndr.de (in German). Retrieved 14 July 2023.
  27. "Prien verteidigt harte Linie im Gender-Streit". www.landtag.ltsh.de. Retrieved 14 July 2023.
  28. tagesschau 20:00 Uhr | ARD Mediathek (in German), retrieved 14 July 2023
  29. [Das Magazin für Frauen, die entscheiden], Ausgabe 2/ 2014, S. 18 (retrieved 19 January 2019)
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