Michael Mertes

Michael Mertes ( born March 26, 1953 in Bonn ) is a German jurist, political official (CDU ) and author. Since June 2011 he has directed the foreign office of the Israel Konrad -Adenauer -Stiftung in Jerusalem.

Family

Michael Mertes is the oldest of five children of the spouses Hiltrud and Alois Mertes. He is married and has four children. One of his brothers is the Jesuit Father Klaus Mertes.

The son of a diplomat family, he spent his childhood and early youth until 1966 mostly abroad (Marseille, Paris, Moscow).

Training

In 1972 he laid the ancient languages ​​Abitur at Aloisiuskolleg in Bonn -Bad Godesberg from. During his two years' service in the army he was trained as a reserve officer. From 1974 to 1980 he studied law in Bonn, Tübingen and at the London School of Economics and Political Science ( there with a focus on the philosophy of law, philosophy of science and international law).

Professional career

After the first legal state exam in 1981, he worked as a parliamentary assistant to Carl Otto Lenz. After the second legal state exam in 1984, he first worked as a contracting officer at the Federal Office of Defense Technology and Procurement, then as an officer in the Personnel Department of the Federal Chancellery. In 1985, he joined the Department of Culture and Church Affairs. In early June 1986, he was appointed to the organizing staff of the company founded by the Chernobyl disaster Federal Ministry for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety; there Walter Wallmann entrusted him with the management of the Minister's Office.

After Wallmann was elected Prime Minister of Hesse, Mertes went in May 1987 back to the Chancellery, there to take over the management of the speechwriter Unit. As chief speechwriter of Chancellor Helmut Kohl he was involved among other things, the design of the "ten- point program to overcome the division of Germany and Europe " on 28 November 1989. He became head of the planning group in 1993. In early 1995 he took over the management of the planning and Culture Department at the Federal Chancellery as the successor to Secretary of State Edward Ackermann. After the change of government in 1998, the new German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder put him into temporary retirement.

In December 1998, Mertes joined the editorial staff of the weekly Rhenish Mercury. There he worked as a freelancer. He was deputy editor and Head of Domestic Policy 1999; In 2001 he became head of the department 's foreign policy. He made in early 2003 as a partner of he co-founded policy consulting company " dimap consult GmbH " self, from which he retired in July 2006. The Rheinische Merkur, he remained connected as a freelance writer; next to it he wrote, among other things, the international newspaper network Project Syndicate and - until 2004 - for the German - Jewish newspaper building.

In early June 2011, he took over the leadership of the Jerusalem offices abroad KAS.

Public offices

From August 2006 until its replacement by the Government Rüttgers the government force in July 2010 I Mertes was Secretary of State for Federal and European Affairs and representative of the Land North Rhine -Westphalia to the Federal Government. In January 2008, he was also Secretary of State for Media. His responsibilities included, among other things, the state of North Rhine -Westphalia in Berlin and the representation of the country in Brussels.

Work as author

Since the mid- 1980s Mertes regularly published in German and foreign newspapers and magazines (including Daedalus, The Political Opinion, Foreign Affairs, International Politics, Neprikosnowénnij Sapa ( Неприкосновенный запас ) Obshchaya Tetrad ( Общая тетрадъ ), Politique étrangère, Prospect, The Washington Quarterly, transit) contributions to European integration, foreign policy, on issues of christian-Jewish dialogue, to socio- cultural and political- contemporary issues.

Together with Norbert J. Prill, the former head of the planning group at the Federal Chancellery, he published in July 1989, an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, who presented the developed by two authors concept of a "Europe of concentric circles " that the concept of a two-tier Europe speeds, especially with the reflections of the Schäuble - Lamers paper of 1994 is closely related. In her essay Mertes and Prill demanded that the European Community should be open for new democracies in the disintegrating Soviet bloc. At the same time they called for a European " core Federation " as " a focal point and center of gravity of the ever -growing community."

During the 1990s Mertes published together with the British Timothy Garton Ash and the Frenchman Dominique Moïsi several " trilateral " pleas for the eastward expansion of the EU and the concomitant institutional modernization.

Was published in 2006 by Mertes, a translation and commentary of William Shakespeare's sonnets. 2009 and 2011, the magazine published the meaning and form of his translations of Donne's love poems.

Memberships and commitment (selection)

In 1971 the CDU in Mertesacker. He was a member of the CDU - Basic Programme Commission in 2006 /07 and was from 2009 to 2011 the board of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in. He is a member of the Commission for Contemporary History and a founding member of the association of Ernst Ludwig Ehrlich study plant. Since 1994, he volunteers his time at the " Moscow School of Political Studies". He was a board member of the existing 2001 to 2009 the Institute for Human Sciences at Boston University. Ex officio he belonged from 2006 to 2011 the Board of the Foundation for Development and Peace, and from 2008 to 2010 the Board of Trustees of the Amerika Haus eV NRW.

Publications

Works

• Немецкие вопросы - европейские ответы ( German questions - European responses). Moscow School of Political Studies, Moscow 2001, ISBN 5-93895-017-1
• On the origin and effect of the ten-point program of 28 November 1989. A workshop report. Forum Politicum Jenense, Jena 2001, ISBN 3-9805570-8-1
• You mean, Rose, are all things for me. Transfer the sonnets of William Shakespeare into German and annotated by Michael Mertes with an afterword by Arnold Stadler. Publisher Franz Schön, Bonn 2006, ISBN 978-3-9811154-0-6
• Parodies, contrafacta and variations on sonnets of William Shakespeare. Publisher Franz Schön, Bonn 2008, ISBN 978-3-9811154-5-1

As editor

Book chapters (selection)

• Alois Mertes - A picture of life. In: Günter Spell (ed.): Alois Mertes: The primacy of the political. Speeches and essays. Droste, Dusseldorf 1994, ISBN 3-7700-1872-9
• The magic of new beginnings - the banality of the end: Cycles of governance. In: Gerhard Hirscher and Karl -Rudolf Korte (eds.): Rise and fall of governments. Power purchase and power erosions in Western democracies. Olzog Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-7892-8060-7
• The information and decision management of the government headquarters. In: Gerhard Hirscher and Karl -Rudolf Korte (eds.): Information and decision-making. West German Verlag, Wiesbaden 2003, ISBN 3-531-14025-6
• What Distinguishes Europe? In Krzysztof Michalski (ed. ): What Holds Europe Together? . Central European University Press, Budapest and New York, 2006, ISBN 978-963-7326-47-9
• Government communication in Germany: complex barriers. In: Werner Weidenfeld (ed.): Reforms communicate. Challenges for policy makers. Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, Gütersloh 2007, ISBN 978-3-89204-910-4
• Myth "1968" - a West German look back. In: Anthony Liedhegener and Torsten Oppelland (ed.): party democracy in the probation. Festschrift for Karl Schmitt. Nomos, Baden -Baden 2009, ISBN 978-3-8329-4679-1

Journal articles (selection)

• The structure of the Federal Environment Ministry (together with Helmut G. Müller). In: Administrative Archive 4/1987
• German unity and European peace order. In: Civis 2/1989 (June 1989)
• Germany 's Social and Political Culture: Change Through Consensus? . In: Daedalus 123, 1 ( Winter 1994)
• Les au XXe siècle questions allemandes: identité, démocratie, équilibre européen. In: Politique étrangère 3-4/2000
• In sight of the Kremlin. As the Russian NGO law is intended to prevent "colored " revolutions. In: International Politics 7/2006
• Geometry, celestial mechanics, and cosmology of love. About John Donne. In: Sinn und Form 6/2011
• The German Länder and the united Europe. In: The Political Opinion 2/2010