Friedrich Merz
 Friedrich Merz    (lawyer, politician, lobbyist, deep state actor) | |||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 | |||||||||||||||||||||
| Born | 11 November 1955 | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Nationality | German | ||||||||||||||||||||
| Member of | Aspen Institute Germany, Atlantik-Brücke, Konrad Adenauer Foundation, Trilateral Commission | ||||||||||||||||||||
German transatlantic lobbyist and politician. Blackrock. Former chairman of the influential Atlantik-Brücke.
| |||||||||||||||||||||
Friedrich Merz is a German lobbyist and politician. A member of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), he was Chairman of the transatlantic network Atlantik-Brücke until 2019, and is a staunch supporter of the European Union and NATO, having described himself as "a truly convinced European, a convinced transatlanticist[1]." Merz advocates a closer union and "an army for Europe". He also sits on the supervisory board of the German branch of the world's largest asset manager BlackRock[2].
He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1989 to 1994 and was elected to the Bundestag from 1994 until 2009, where he chaired the CDU/CSU parliamentary group from 2000 to 2002. Merz was a candidate in the 2018 CDU leadership election, placing second; tried again in the 2021 leadership election[3] , but did not succeed.
Bank lobbyism
From 2005 to 2014 (until 2009, in addition to being an elected representative) Merz worked as a partner in the international law firm Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw LLP - a heavyweight in the industry with annual sales in the billions, one of the twenty largest law firms in the world and which mostly represents Wall Street companies.
As a representative of this law firm, Merz was hired as a lawyer by the German government (SoFFin) in 2010 to find a buyer for the ailing bank WestLB after the law firm already had dumped the bank's junk bonds worth 77 billion euros to a taxpayer-funded "Bad Bank". Merz received a fee of 5,000 euros per day from the government for his services. His engagement was also a success for the bank HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt, which played a role in the takeover of the WestLB assets. As a thank you for this, Merz was allowed to take over the presidency of the HSBC Trinkaus Board of Directors, a well paid position. [4]
He sits on the boards of AXA Group AG, DBV-Winterthur Holding AG, Deutsche Börse AG, Ernst & Young AG, ROCKWOOL, WEPA Industrieholding SE, Commerzbank AG and the HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt[5]. His biggest career move, however, was his appointment as chairman of the supervisory board of the German branch of the world's largest asset manager BlackRock.
He is a founding member of the neoliberal think tank Initiative Neue Soziale Marktwirtschaft[6] and sits on committees in the neoliberal network Stiftung Marktwirtschaft.[7]
Events Participated in
| Event | Start | End | Location(s) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Munich Security Conference/2019 | 15 February 2019 | 17 February 2019 | Germany Munich Bavaria |
| Munich Security Conference/2022 | 18 February 2022 | 20 February 2022 | Germany Munich Bavaria |
References
- ↑ https://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article183054050/Merz-will-CDU-Chef-werden-Wir-brauchen-Aufbruch-und-Erneuerung-keinen-Umsturz.html
- ↑ http://www.manager-magazin.de/unternehmen/personalien/friedrich-merz-wird-lobbyist-des-investmentriesen-blackrock-a-1082798.html
- ↑ https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/merkel-cdu-bundesregierung-1.4189532
- ↑ https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=46793
- ↑ https://www.about.hsbc.de/de-de/hsbc-in-germany/executive-bodies
- ↑ https://lobbypedia.de/wiki/Initiative_Neue_Soziale_Marktwirtschaft
- ↑ https://lobbypedia.de/wiki/Stiftung_Marktwirtschaft
