19 Facts About Dirk Niebel

Dirk Niebel then studied at the German College of Public Administration in Mannheim and finished his studies in 1993 as Diplom-Verwaltungswirt.

From 1993 to 1998, Dirk Niebel worked at an employment bureau in Sinsheim, a part of the Federal Employment Office of Heidelberg.

In 1977, Dirk Niebel joined the Junge Union, and in 1979, the CDU.

Since 2003 Dirk Niebel has been a member of the Federal Board of the FDP and of the curatorship of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation.

Dirk Niebel was first elected a member of the Bundestag in the 1998 elections.

From 2000 to 2010, Dirk Niebel served as the vice president of the Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft.

In 2009, Dirk Niebel was appointed Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development in the second government of Chancellor Angela Merkel.

In early 2012, Dirk Niebel met with Myanmar's opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and was among those pushing for a complete removal of sanctions against the country rather than a more gradual easing.

On 6 November 2011, Dirk Niebel inaugurated the newly established German Institute for Development Evaluation, the first body to independently evaluate the performance of German development cooperation interventions.

Only after negotiations with Rwandan Foreign Minister Louise Mushikiwabo in early 2013, Dirk Niebel agreed to use the unfrozen aid for economic development and vocational training rather than direct budget support.

Also in 2012, Dirk Niebel temporarily discontinued German payments into the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria after a corruption scandal came to light; at the time, Germany was the third largest donor to the Fund.

Only in 2013, Dirk Niebel announced that Germany would contribute 1 billion euros to the GFATM for the period of 2012 to 2016.

In December 2012, Dirk Niebel had various development projects frozen in Egypt amid concerns about the "domestic and political developments" in the country, and fears that a "new dictatorship" was developing under Mohamed Morsi.

Since 2015, Dirk Niebel has been an Advisor to the Executive Board of Rheinmetall.

In June 2010, the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prevented Dirk Niebel from visiting Gaza.

In January 2011, Dirk Niebel met with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and signed a joint Declaration of Intent aimed to increase bilateral cooperation in effort to assist developing nations, agreeing to work towards the rehabilitation of the contaminated Lake Victoria in Kenya, the main source of water for several states and one of the sources of the Nile River.

In March 2011, Dirk Niebel caused diplomatic tensions when he accused the United Nations-backed military alliance operating in Libya of hypocrisy.

In June 2012, Dirk Niebel attracted controversy after he had a carpet flown home from Afghanistan for free.

On 2 May 2012 the German TV magazine Monitor reported that after Dirk Niebel took the office of Federal Minister of Economic Cooperation and Development over 40 members or staff of the FDP were hired to work in his ministry.