Former SPD party leader Sigmar Gabriel will hand over his mandate to the Bundestag on 1 November. The news agency dpa reports, citing a letter from Gabriel.
"If I retire now after just over half of the legislative period, that has very personal reasons," writes the former Foreign Minister. Gabriel, MdB since 2005, sits for the constituency of Salzgitter-Wolfenbüttel in the Bundestag.
He took his 60th birthday in mid-September as an opportunity to think about his future political and professional activity, Gabriel is quoted as saying. Two teaching assignments at the Universities of Bonn and Harvard, the work as a speaker and the honorary post as chairman of the Atlantik-Brücke employed and claimed him increasingly, reports dpa.
"Both - the mandate and these new tasks - perceive parallel, I do not think it is justifiable," said Gabriel accordingly. Since summer 2018, the politician is also an author of the Holtzbrinck-Verlag under contract. For guest contributions in the "Handelsblatt", in the "Tagesspiegel" or in "Der Zeit" he gets according to their own information between 15,000 and 30,000 euros a month.
Der Spiegel had reported in March that Gabriel was also appointed to the advisory board of the consulting firm Deloitte. (Read more about the many side jobs of Sigmar Gabriel here.)