Secretary of State - Germany

Germany

The German Staatssekretär is a Beamter (civil servant) who is second only to the minister in a state or federal ministry. The office of Staatssekretär is similar to that of vice minister or deputy minister in other countries. It is a political office, meaning that it is assigned by appointment based on political criteria such as party affiliation, rather than by career progression as a civil servant, although he is the administrative head of the ministry. They depend on the full confidence of their minister and can at any time be posted into provisional retirement with their pension paid in full. This happens usually when the government or the minister changes. De facto such a provisional retirement is lifelong and thus expensive for the taxpayers.

A special case is the Parlamentarische Staatssekretär (parliamentary secretary of state), which is a member of parliament who is appointed to a ministry as a Staatssekretär, in the German Foreign Office and the German Chancellery the official title is Staatsminister (Minister of State). Such posts, which were intended to improve the connection between a ministry and the parliament, have recently become subject of some controversy. Critics claim that parliamentary secretaries of state are usually given little to no influence and responsibility within their ministry. All the while they are paid very generously due to receiving two salaries, both as secretary of state and as member of parliament. For example, when interviewed about his post as a parliamentary minister of state in the German Foreign Office during an investigation into visa abuse, Ludger Volmer claimed that he had been cut off from the workflow within the ministry, and called the Staatsminister office an "Unding" (absurdity).

In 1998, chancellor Gerhard Schröder introduced the new office of Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media (Beauftragter der Bundesregierung für Kultur und Medien) at the formal rank of a Parlamentarischer Staatssekretär, hence the office is usually called Kulturstaatsminister ("Minister of Culture") for short - although some of the incumbents did not hold a seat in parliament. The German Parliamentary Commission for Culture and the Media (Ausschuss für Kultur und Medien im Deutschen Bundestag) serves in place of a proper ministry for this department. Since 1998, the office of Kulturstaatsminister has been held by Michael Naumann (1998–2001), Julian Nida-Rümelin (2001–2002), Christina Weiss (2002–2005), and Bernd Neumann (since 2005).