11 Facts About Ilse Aigner

Ilse Aigner was born on 7 December 1964 and is a German politician and member of the Christian Social Union of Bavaria.

Ilse Aigner succeeded Horst Seehofer, who had become Minister President of Bavaria.

Ilse Aigner left her position on 30 September 2013 after being elected as a member of the Bavarian parliament.

Ilse Aigner completed a professional training as a telecommunications technician in 1985 and joined her parents' electrical installation business.

Ilse Aigner was elected first in 1994 to the Bavarian State Parliament.

From 1998 Ilse Aigner was a member of the German Bundestag, always winning an absolute majority of the votes in her electoral district.

Ilse Aigner was a little-known member of parliament with no previous ministerial experience when she took over as Federal Minister for Consumer Protection, Food and Agriculture in the cabinet of Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2008, replacing Horst Seehofer.

Ilse Aigner took a tough line against cultivation of genetically modified organisms in Germany but received praise from commodity traders when she supported imports of GMOs approved in the United States and South America to secure German supplies of soybeans for animal feed.

Amid the German debate on the country's energy transition to an energy portfolio dominated by renewable energy, Ilse Aigner called in later 2012 for the partial nationalization of the country's electrical grid in order to ensure that high-voltage power lines required to transport green energy from offshore windfarms and other sources to the industry-heavy regions of southern Germany are built.

In 2012, Ilse Aigner announced she would leave her post to return to local politics in her home state of Bavaria following the 2013 national elections, prompting speculation that she was eyeing the post of Bavarian Minister-President Horst Seehofer.

On 5 November 2018, Ilse Aigner was elected with 198 of 205 votes as new President of the Bavarian Landtag.