Germany’s former Vice-Chancellor and Economy Minister Robert Habeck will leave parliament in September for academia, marking his exit from frontline politics after his failed run for the chancellery in February.
Habeck, who served in the last traffic light coalition, had hoped the election would bring the Greens, his party, back into government.
Instead, his ambitions dashed as polls favoured a conservative-led coalition under Friedrich Merz – a government numerically possible only with the support of the Social Democrats.
With no executive power in hand, it was “time to close one (door) so that another can open,” Habeck told German outlet taz in an exclusive interview.
“This Monday, I informed the Bundestag governing body that I will resign from my Bundestag mandate on 1 September,” he said.
After February’s election defeat, Habeck announced he would leave politics altogether. But an open petition named ‘Robert, we need you’ gathered around 450,000 signatures, convincing him to stay on as an MP.
Taking the summer for soul-searching, Habeck explained: “I need to distance myself from the overly restrictive constraints of Berlin’s political system.”
“I don’t want to be a sneering, cynical commentator, nor do I want to walk the corridors like a ghost saying: I used to be vice-chancellor, remember?”
Now, Habeck will join the Danish Institute for International Studies in Copenhagen and the University of California, Berkeley. “But there will be others with whom I will be collaborating as well,” he said.
The 55-year-old holds a PhD in philosophy and German literature, is a published novelist, served as a minister in the state of Schleswig-Holstein, and co-led the Greens nationally before being appointed federal minister.
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