Erwin Sellering

German politician

Erwin Sellering


Minister President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
In office 6 October 2008 – 4 July 2017
President	Horst Köhler Christian Wulff Joachim Gauck Frank-Walter Steinmeier
Chancellor	Angela Merkel
Deputy	Lorenz Caffier
Preceded by	Harald Ringstorff
Succeeded by	Manuela Schwesig
Leader of the Social Democratic Party in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
In office 14 April 2007 – 2 July 2017
Preceded by	Till Backhaus
Succeeded by	Manuela Schwesig
Minister of Health and Social Affairs of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
In office 7 November 2006 – 6 October 2008
Minister President	Harald Ringstorff
Preceded by	Marianne Linke
Succeeded by	Manuela Schwesig
Minister of Justice of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern
In office 20 September 2000 – 7 November 2006
Minister President	Harald Ringstorff
Preceded by	Harald Ringstorff
Succeeded by	Uta-Maria Kuder

Personal details
Born	(1949-10-18) 18 October 1949 (age 74) Sprockhövel, West Germany
Political party	Social Democratic Party
Alma mater	Heidelberg University Ruhr University Bochum University of Münster

Erwin Sellering (born 18 October 1949) is a German politician. He served as the 4th Minister President of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern from 2008 to 2017.

Early life and career

Sellering studied law and has lived in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since 1994, where he worked at the courts of Schwerin and Greifswald.^[1]

Political career

Being a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, he has held various positions in the government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern since 1998 - first as a state secretary, later as Minister for Justice, and since 2006 as Minister for Social Affairs.^[1] In 2007, he became chairman of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's Social Democratic Party.^[1] In 2008, he succeeded Harald Ringstorff as Mecklenburg-Vorpommern's prime minister. He is also a member of the German-Russian Friendship Group set up by the German Bundesrat and the Russian Federation Council.

In the 2016 state elections, Sellering and his SPD garnered a better-than-forecast 30.6 percent. He had campaigned on local issues, urging voters to focus on jobs creation in the wind turbine sector, decentralized integration of refugees and pension parity with Germany's western regions.^[2]

Between October 2016 and May 2017, Sellering chaired the Conference of Ministers-President. He was a SPD delegate to the Federal Convention for the purpose of electing the President of Germany in 2017.

On 30 May 2017 Sellering announced his resignation from all official political positions after he had been diagnosed with lymph cancer that needed immediate treatment. He proposed as his replacement Manuela Schwesig.^[3]

Political positions

Sellering is known for taking a hard line against neo-Nazis and for supporting families.^[1]

Life after politics

From 2021 to 2022, Selling served as chairman of the Stiftung Klima- und Umweltschutz MV (Climate and Environment Protection Foundation), an entity set up by the government of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in January 2021 and endowed with 20 million euros from Nord Stream 2 AG, a Switzerland-based company owned by Gazprom.^[4]

Other activities

Festspiele Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Patron
Deutsches Museum, Member of the Board of Trustees
KfW, Member of the Board of Supervisory Directors (2013-2015)^[5]^[6]

Personal life

Sellering is married, has two children^[1] and currently resides in Greifswald.^[1]^[7]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f handelsblatt, 22 August 2008, "Der adrette Jurist" [1]
^ Merkel's CDU trounced in Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania Deutsche Welle, 4 September 2016.
^ German governor is ill, prompting change to Merkel's Cabinet Archived 28 September 2017 at the Wayback Machine Yahoo!, 30 May 2017.
^ Thomas Escritt and Sarah Marsh (11 February 2022), Explainer: How a German 'climate' fund set out to help Russia dodge U.S. sanctions Reuters.
^ 2012 Annual Report Archived 9 January 2014 at the Wayback Machine KfW.
^ 2015 Annual Report KfW.
^ Erwin Sellering im Portrait at nachrichten.t-online, 24 August 2008