Saskia Esken

Saskia Christina Esken ( Hofer; born 28 August 1961) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who has been serving as co-leader of the party since being elected in December 2019 (alongside Norbert Walter-Borjans) and re-elected in December 2021 (alongside Lars Klingbeil). She has been a member of the Bundestag since 2013 and has been IT specialist in the early 1990s. Esken was born 1961 in Stuttgart. After unfinished studies in literature and sociology, she obtained, in 1991, a professional certificate in IT. She worked in this field until the birth of her children in 1994. Esken entered the SPD in 1990. Esken has been a member of the German Bundestag since the 2013 elections, representing Calw. In parliament, she served on the Committee on Internal Affairs (2018–2019), the Committee on the Digital Agenda (2013–2019), the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment (2013–2017) and the Parliamentary Advisory Board on Sustainable Development (2013–2017). In this capacity, she was her parliamentary group's rapporteur on privacy, IT security, digital education, and eGovernment. Within her parliamentary group, Esken was part of working groups on digital issues (since 2014) and on consumer protection (since 2018) as well as of the Parlamentarische Linke (Parliamentary Left), an association of left-wing MPs. In the negotiations to form a coalition government under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel following the 2017 federal elections, Esken was part of the working group on digital policy, led Helge Braun, Dorothee Bär, and Lars Klingbeil. Together with Norbert Walter-Borjans, Esken announced her candidacy for the 2019 Social Democratic Party of Germany leadership election. During her campaign, she vowed to force Chancellor Merkel and her CDU/CSU bloc to renegotiate the coalition treaty or push for an “orderly retreat” from the government. Esken and Walter-Borjans won the November 2019 run-off against Klara Geywitz and Olaf Scholz.