Niels Annen

Niels Annen is the State Secretary of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of Germany since 2025. Before he served as Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in the coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz. He served as Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office from 2018 to 2021 in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. Mr. Annen has served as member of the German Bundestag from 2005 to 2009 and from 2013 until 2025. As a long-time member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Annen established himself as a foreign policy expert, focusing largely on the German engagement in Afghanistan and the Middle East. As a Spanish speaker, he is also well versed in the history and politics of Latin and Central America. Within the Committee on Foreign Affairs, he has served on the Subcommittee for Arms Control and Non Proliferation as well as the Subcommittee for the United Nations. From 2014 to 2018, he served as the Foreign Policy Spokesperson for the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Mr. Annen was a Senior Transatlantic Resident at the German Marshall Fund in Washington between 2010 and 2011. From 2011 until 2013 he worked for the department for International Policy Analysis of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin. He holds a Master Degree in International Public Policy of the Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C., USA.