Lawyer from the far North: Wolfgang Kubicki

On 26 October 2021, Wolfgang Kubicki was re-elected Vice-President of the German Bundestag, having been put forward by the FDP parliamentary group. In the elections of 26 September 2021, he entered the Bundestag again via the party’s list for Schleswig-Holstein, and represents the constituency of Steinburg – Dithmarschen Süd.

Wolfgang Kubicki had already been a Member of the Bundestag from 1990 to 1992, and again in 2002. However, the majority of his time as a parliamentarian was spent serving as a Member of the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag from 1992 to 2017 – where he was chairman of the FDP group from 1992 to 1993 and 1996 to 2017. Following his election to the German Bundestag on 24 September 2017, the Bundestag elected him as Vice-President for the first time on 24 October 2017.

Wolfgang Kubicki was born on 3 March 1952 in Braunschweig. After gaining his Abitur (higher-education entrance qualification) in 1970 he studied economics at Kiel University, graduating in 1975. He completed his subsequent law degree with state examinations in 1982 and 1985. In 1976 he worked for a business consultancy firm, from 1978 to 1980 at a tax consultancy office and from 1981 to 1983 as a research assistant for the FDP parliamentary group in the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag. He has practised as a lawyer with his own firm since 1985.

Wolfgang Kubicki joined the Free Democratic Party (FDP) in 1971. From 1972 to 1973 he was deputy federal chairman of the Liberal University Association and from 1975 to 1976 chairman of the Young Democrats in Schleswig-Holstein. He has been a member of the executive committee of the FDP Land branch since 1976. From 1987 to 1989 he was chairman of the Rendsburg-Eckernförde county branch, and chairman of the Schleswig-Holstein branch of the FDP from 1989 to 1993. At the FDP federal party conference in March 2013 Wolfgang Kubicki was elected as a member of the presidium; since December of that year he has been his party’s deputy federal chairman.

At the German Bundestag, in the early nineties, Wolfgang Kubicki was a member of the Bundestag’s Committee on Economic Affairs, the Committee on Research and Technology, the Committee on Internal Affairs and the Petitions Committee. In August 1992, he stood down as a Member of the Bundestag after the FDP had once again managed to enter the Schleswig-Holstein Landtag and he had become chairman of the parliamentary group there.

At the election in 2002, he was elected to the Bundestag via the party list, but subsequently gave up his seat in December 2002 in order to return to serving as a politician in Schleswig-Holstein.

Following his re-election to the Bundestag in 2017, he chaired the Commission of the Council of Elders on Buildings and Room Allocation during the last electoral term in his capacity as a member of the Presidium. As Vice-President in the current 20th electoral term he has once again taken on this function.