Minister-President of Rhineland-Palatinate, 1994–2013

On 26 October 1994 Kurt Beck was elected Minister President of Rhineland-Palatinate, succeeding Rudolf Scharping. He was re-elected three times, in 1996, 2001 and 2006. As Minister President he was known for his centrist approach, which is also apparent from the choice of his coalition partner (the liberal FDP instead of the left-wing Green Party, with which the SPD has recently allied itself). In this respect, he follows the policy of Scharping. In March 2006, Beck's SPD gained an absolute majority in the state elections; Beck offered to continue the coalition but since the FDP declined, the SPD formed a government without a partner. After Edmund Stoiber resigned in 2007, Beck was the senior Minister President in Germany.

During his time in office, Beck's decisions in Rhineland-Palatinate to increase efficiency in the state government via administrative reorganisation, and to introduce full-day schooling and free kindergartens, drew national attention. The state also emerged as one of the country’s top economic performers.^[5] When the United States Armed Forces closed dozens of camps and barracks with the loss of 100,000 jobs, Beck's government invested heavily in retraining schemes, creating 40,000 new jobs.^[6]

In 2000 and 2001, Beck was President of the Bundesrat, one of his duties as Minister President.

In September 2012, Beck announced his resignation. He had been under pressure for weeks over the bankruptcy of the Nürburgring motorsports complex in Rhineland-Palatinate, one of the world's most famous race tracks.^[7]

Chairman of the SPD, 2006–2008

When Matthias Platzeck had to resign for medical reasons in 2006, Beck was officially elected as chairman of the SPD with the approval of 95% of the delegates.^[8] He became the party’s fourth chairman in seven years.^[9]

Beck decided not to join the cabinet and succeed Vice-Chancellor Franz Müntefering because it would have prevented him from criticizing Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition government.^[10] According to public opinion polls during his time as party chairman, his possibilities of becoming Chancellor, if he had run for this office in the 2009 election, had been very limited. According to Süddeutsche Zeitung,^[11] only 16% of Germans would have elected him in the hypothetical case of a direct vote against Angela Merkel.

During his time in office as party leader, Beck most notably negotiated an agreement with Merkel’s Christian Democrats in April 2017 on a partial privatization of national railway Deutsche Bahn's passenger and freight divisions.^[12] Meanwhile, Beck's decision in early 2008 to allow regional cooperation with the left-wing populist Left Party in western German state parliaments caused a rift within his party and triggered a slump in opinion poll ratings for the SPD and him personally.^[13]

On 7 September 2008, Beck resigned as chairman at a party meeting in Werder, Brandenburg and Frank-Walter Steinmeier was chosen as the SPD candidate for Chancellor in the 2009 election, while Franz Müntefering replaced Beck as chairman after an interim of Steinmeier.^[14] At the time, he said that he was a victim of intrigue inside the SPD.^[15]

Henrico Frank

Near the end of 2006, Beck recommended to Henrico Frank, an unemployed construction worker from Wiesbaden, to wash himself and shave so he could get a job.^[18] Following a media controversy about Beck's behaviour, Frank declined all jobs offered to him by the state chamber. Later, he was hired as a punk rock expert for iMusic TV.^[19]

Afghanistan

In April 2007, Beck proposed a peace conference in Afghanistan with the inclusion of "moderate Taliban".^[20] The Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, Rangin Dadfar Spanta, thus accused him of being naïve. He compared the idea of "moderate Taliban" to distinguishing between moderate and radical right-wing extremists in Rhineland-Palatinate.^[21] The German public mostly ignored the affair.

Corporate boards

• Boehringer Ingelheim, Member of the Advisory Board (since 2013)^[22]

Non-profit organizations

• Stiftung Hambacher Schloss, Chair of the Advisory Board (since 2020)^[23]
• European Foundation for the Speyer Cathedral, Chairman of the Board of Trustees^[24]
• Denkwerk Demokratie, Member of the Advisory Board^[25]
• Fritz Walter Foundation, Chair of the Advisory Board^[26]
• Stefan Morsch Foundation, Member of the Board of Trustees (since 2013)^[27]
• Stiftung Institut für Herzinfarktforschung (IHF), Member of the Board of Trustees^[28]
• Stiftung Tausendgut, Member of the Board of Trustees^[29]