Wolfgang Schmidt is a senior German policymaker with extensive experience in foreign and security policy, European affairs, and economic statecraft. From 2021 to 2025 he served as Federal Minister for Special Tasks, Head of the Federal Chancellery, and Commissioner for the Intelligence Services, overseeing Germany’s intelligence community and coordinating the federal government and its three-party coalition. Previously he was State Secretary at the Federal Ministry of Finance and Plenipotentiary of Hamburg to the Federation, the EU, and for Foreign Affairs. He is a Council Member of the European Council on Foreign Relations. A lawyer by training, he lives in Berlin.
