At 45, Jens Spahn occupies a high-profile but polarizing place in German politics. Recently re-elected as leader of the CDU/CSU parliamentary group with 85% of the vote, the former health minister still faces the fallout from his COVID-era tenure — including a probe into alleged misuse of public funds that prosecutors dropped in March — and low popularity ratings in public opinion polls.
The parliamentary group leader’s seat has been held by figures such as Helmut Kohl, Angela Merkel and Friedrich Merz, and many assume Spahn harbors long-term ambitions for higher office. He once stood as a rival to Merz in the contest to succeed Merkel but was neither of the two who ultimately prevailed when Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer won that internal contest. Despite strong support inside his parliamentary faction, surveys place Spahn among Germany’s least popular politicians, even ranking below Chancellor Merz in some recent polls.
A resilient conservative
Spahn’s career has been marked by durability. The dropping of the criminal investigation and his commanding re-election show he retains significant backing inside the CDU/CSU, even as he encounters recurring internal friction. His immediate task as parliamentary leader is practical and political: keep the bloc’s 208 Bundestag members aligned with the government. That role has required heavy lifting — in December 2025 he personally worked to persuade several younger CDU MPs to back the coalition’s new pension plan — and observers say his record on maintaining unity is mixed. With only a narrow majority, the group faces hard votes ahead, including contentious health-care reforms that could test his ability to hold the conservatives together.
Background and rise
Born in 1980 in Ottenstein near the Dutch border, Spahn often cites early trips into the Netherlands as formative for his view of European freedom of movement; he now chairs the German-Dutch parliamentary group. He is Catholic and openly gay; he married Daniel Funke, an editor at media company Burda, in 2017. Spahn trained in banking at WestLB in Münster in his late teens and early twenties, but his political trajectory began even earlier: he joined the Junge Union at 15, led a local CDU branch at 19 and was elected to the Bundestag at 22 in 2002. While serving as an MP he completed a master’s degree in political science.
In parliament he served as the CDU’s health policy spokesperson, spent three years as parliamentary state secretary at the Finance Ministry under Wolfgang Schäuble, and was appointed federal health minister in 2018 in Angela Merkel’s fourth government.
The ‘mask affair’ and financial scrutiny
Spahn’s time as health minister became synonymous with the so-called ‘mask affair.’ The ministry used an open-house procurement process to buy large volumes of protective equipment during the early pandemic; some contracts later ran afoul of EU procurement rules, and millions of masks were found defective. The ministry refused payment in some cases and resulting legal disputes could cost the state as much as €3.5 billion. One purchase included 570,000 FFP-2 masks from Burda, the employer of Spahn’s husband, drawing intense media and political scrutiny. The Bundesrechnungshof, the federal audit office, heavily criticized the procurement, and a parliamentary inquiry under Spahn’s successor, Karl Lauterbach, concluded the episode cost taxpayers billions. Prosecutors eventually dropped their investigation into Spahn personally. Separately, press questions arose about a €4.1 million loan Spahn used to buy a villa in Berlin — a loan from a bank where he had previously been on the advisory board — prompting scrutiny over whether he received favorable terms.
Political shift and rhetoric
Over time Spahn has moved toward the CDU’s right flank. He publicly criticized Merkel’s 2015 refugee policy, and in 2024 proposed temporarily suspending certain EU rules to manage illegal immigration. He has also suggested controversial measures such as using ultrasound to verify migrants’ ages. At times his language has taken on a populist edge: after becoming parliamentary leader he sparked backlash by saying the government should treat the Alternative for Germany (AfD) ‘like any other opposition party.’ He later softened that phrasing, insisting he did not intend to ‘normalize’ the AfD.
Position under Merz and what’s next
Merz appointed Spahn to the parliamentary leader role despite their previous rivalry, a move that raised eyebrows at first. Spahn has shown loyalty to Merz since, and the chancellor appears to value Spahn’s organizational strengths in marshaling conservative MPs. Whether Spahn will become a future CDU chancellor candidate is unclear — several colleagues are also positioning themselves — but at 45 he still has time to build a broader public profile.
Spahn’s combination of internal clout, a reputation for toughness on migration, and the lingering controversies from the pandemic era make him one of Germany’s most consequential and contested political figures. How effectively he translates parliamentary influence into wider public support, and whether unresolved ethical questions continue to shadow him, will shape his prospects going forward.