# Carolin Wagner

# Carolin Wagner

Dr. Carolin Wagner (born 1 October 1982 in Heidelberg) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and a member of the Bundestag from Bavaria. She sat in the 20th electoral term from the parliament’s constituent sitting on 26 October 2021, and the Bundestag records her as a member of the 21st electoral term from 25 March 2025. In both terms she was returned on the Bavarian SPD state list, and she is associated with the Regensburg constituency, numbered 233 in 2021 and 232 after the redistribution used in 2025. The Bundestag’s archived biography for the 20th term states that she is Roman Catholic, married and the mother of two children.

Wagner has written that she grew up in Altenstadt an der Waldnaab, in the northern Upper Palatinate, and that she has lived in Lappersdorf, near Regensburg, since 2015. From 2002 she studied at the University of Regensburg, taking a Magister degree in German philology, political science and education and a doctorate in German linguistics. The thesis was published under the name Carolin Hagl by Peter Lang as *Orte politischer Bildung im Netz. Politischer Kinder-Online-Sachtext als Hypertextsorte*, a study of children’s websites about Germany’s political institutions as a hypertext genre. During the doctorate she was a degree-programme coordinator at the university’s Institute of German Studies, and in 2013 she moved to the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden to lead its study and career service. The SPD Bundestag group lists her occupation as head of a department at a university of applied sciences, and the disclosure for the 20th term records that the OTH post carried a right to return and protection against dismissal.

At the 2021 federal election she stood for the SPD in constituency 233, Regensburg, and in 22nd place on the Bavarian state list. The SPD received 32,850 first votes there (16.6 percent), behind [Peter Aumer](/people/peter-aumer) of the [Christian Social Union](/organizations/christian-social-union-in-bavaria), who held the direct seat with 35.3 percent; the SPD’s second-vote share in the constituency was 17.4 percent. In 2025 she stood eighth on the state list in the renumbered constituency 232. The SPD took 27,626 first votes (13.0 percent), behind Aumer (38.3 percent), [Alternative for Germany](/organizations/alternative-for-germany) candidate [Carina Schießl](/people/carina-schiessl) (17.9 percent) and Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) (13.1 percent), and its second-vote share in the constituency was 11.1 percent.

In the 20th Bundestag Wagner was a full member of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment and of the Committee on Digital Affairs, and a substitute member of the Finance Committee and the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development. On 25 September 2023 the Bavarian SPD group in the Bundestag faction elected her and Carsten Träger as a dual chair, the first time the group had chosen two chairs. In the 21st Bundestag she is a full member of the Committee on Digital Affairs and State Modernisation and of the Committee on Research, Technology, Space and Technology Assessment, and a substitute member of the Committee on Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and of the Petitions Committee. The SPD faction lists her as deputy spokesperson of its working group on digital affairs and state modernisation, and the Bavarian group’s board lists her as chair, with Bernd Rützel, Michael Schrodi and Carmen Wegge as deputy chairs. She joined the SPD in 2004, has been a member of the Bavarian state executive since 2017, and has chaired the Upper Palatinate district of the party since 2019.

## Early life and education

### Childhood and family

Carolin Wagner was born on 1 October 1982 in Heidelberg. The Bundestag biography, based on members' own statements, lists her as Roman Catholic, married and the mother of two children. She has written that she grew up not in Heidelberg but in Altenstadt an der Waldnaab, in the northern Upper Palatinate of Bavaria. A January 2026 portrait in *Tagesspiegel Background* places that childhood in a trade-union family in the northern Upper Palatinate during the 1980s and 1990s, and says collective-bargaining rounds were argued over at the evening meal.

In the same portrait, her mother worked for the German Trade Union Confederation and her father was a union secretary at IG Bergbau, Chemie, Energie, looking after plants in the porcelain and ceramics industry. Wagner said imports from China had largely destroyed that branch, and that her father's work included hard local fights over jobs, among them rescue measures for which he went to the economics ministry in Munich. On her own site she adds that she has two siblings; that her mother left paid work for about ten years because childcare was scarce and later worked at a regional court (Landgericht); that politics was a household subject without her parents pressing her toward the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany); and that, in what she calls a working-class family, she was the first to attend a Gymnasium, the first to study and the first to take a doctorate.

She has written that in 2015 she and her husband moved from Regensburg to Lappersdorf. Regional reporting matches that household. In September 2021 *idowa* wrote that her two young sons were with her parents-in-law as she left for Berlin, and called her a 38-year-old linguist with a doctorate. A January 2025 *idowa* portrait was set in her house in Lappersdorf, with children's drawings and toys in the room.

### Studies at the University of Regensburg

From 2002 Wagner studied in Regensburg. The Bundestag biography states that she completed a Magister in German studies (Germanistik), political science and pedagogy (Pädagogik) at the University of Regensburg, and then a doctorate in German linguistics. The note published with her dissertation describes that Magister as German philology (Deutsche Philologie), political science and pedagogy, without giving the year it was awarded.

Alongside the doctorate she worked as a degree-programme coordinator (Studiengangkoordinatorin) at the university's Institute of German Studies (Institut für Germanistik). The Bundestag biography dates her departure from that post to 2013, when she moved to the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden to lead its study and career service.

### Doctorate in German linguistics

The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek catalogues *Orte politischer Bildung im Netz: Politischer Kinder-Online-Sachtext als Hypertextsorte*, by Carolin Hagl, as identical with a 2012 dissertation of the University of Regensburg, published in 2013 by Lang in Frankfurt am Main in 342 pages (ISBN 978-3-631-62440-1). Peter Lang gives November 2013 as the publication date and lists the book as volume 5 of the series *Sprache – Medien – Innovationen*; the same page also shows a 2014 copyright line and a digital edition (ISBN 978-3-653-03952-8, DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-03952-8). The publisher's note on the author says the doctorate was in German philology at Regensburg's chair of German linguistics (Lehrstuhl für Deutsche Sprachwissenschaft), which matches the Bundestag's description of a doctorate in German linguistics.

The publisher's summary, repeated in a Linguist List book announcement of 12 December 2013, says the study isolates a hypertext genre—the political children's online non-fiction text (*Politischer Kinder-Online-Sachtext*)—from informative web texts treated as places of political education. Using the methods of communication-oriented text linguistics, it describes that genre from the texts of four children's websites about Germany's institutional system, including features specific to hypertext. Its stated aim is to show how such sites convey basic political knowledge to children, with findings the publisher says could be used in online political education and in programming search engines. The imprint lists nine colour illustrations, eleven black-and-white illustrations and twenty tables.

## Academic and professional career

### University of Regensburg

Wagner studied German studies, political science and education in the magister programme at the University of Regensburg until 2007, then took a doctorate there in German linguistics from 2007 to 2012. During the doctorate, and until April 2013, she was degree-programme coordinator (Studiengangkoordinatorin) at the Institute of German Studies. Between 2010 and 2012 she also completed a course in science management at the Zentrum für Wissenschaftsmanagement in Speyer. The Bundestag biography, based on her own statements, records that sequence and, from October 2024, an unpaid seat on the university's Kuratorium. The university says the body supports its interests in public and its research and teaching, and lists her among members from business, culture and public life.

### Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden

On 1 May 2013, under the name Dr. Carolin Hagl, she became head of a reorganized Study and Career Service (Studien- und Career Service) at the Ostbayerische Technische Hochschule Amberg-Weiden, a public university of applied sciences with campuses in Amberg and Weiden in der Oberpfalz. The university described the post as an expansion of central student advising inside coaching@haw, part of the joint federal-state Qualitätspakt Lehre programme. Added tasks were support through the course of a degree, alumni work, classes in skills such as communication and learning methods, and self-assessments. For the university as a whole the project ran from 2012 to 2016 with 2.26 million euros and twelve additional posts, under vice-president Andrea Klug and Wolfgang Weber.

The service is the university's first contact for prospective and enrolled students on orientation, applications, difficulties during a degree and changing programmes, and it also offers career-entry support and soft-skill courses; subject questions go to faculty advisers. In September 2015 the annual meeting of Bavarian career-service offices was held there. Wagner, named in that release as Dr. Carolin Wagner and as head of the service, described the work as qualification, information and advice, including application training, checks of application files and job boards. University releases still identified her as head of the service in July 2017, when it added proactive scholarship counselling, and in February 2021, when orientation and counselling had moved to chat, telephone, email and video during the [COVID-19 pandemic](/drivers/covid-19-pandemic).

The SPD group in the Bundestag lists her occupation as Referatsleiterin an der HAW, head of a unit at a university of applied sciences. Mandatory disclosures give the activity before membership as Referatsleitung at OTH Amberg-Weiden in Amberg, with a right of return (Rückkehrrecht) and protection against dismissal (Kündigungsschutz). The university's staff directory still lists her under the title of head of the Study and Career Service.

### Civic and professional memberships

The same record adds memberships and one board seat rather than a second paid post. The Bundestag biography lists membership of the Gewerkschaft Erziehung und Wissenschaft, the trade union for staff in education and science; the Arbeiterwohlfahrt; the air-rescue association DRF; Die Johanniter; and Lebenshilfe, among others. On her website, in a note dated December 2024, she also cites membership of the volunteer fire brigade in Kareth, the Regensburg press club and other local associations. The executive office among these civic roles in the parliamentary register is the board of Pro Familia Regensburg. The legal notice of the district association pro familia Niederbayern-Oberpfalz e.V., which gives a Regensburg address, likewise names Dr. Carolin Wagner, MdB, as a member of the executive board.

## Party offices in the SPD

### Young Socialists and local offices

Carolin Wagner joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 2004 and, according to the biography the Bundestag publishes from members' own statements, has been active in party work since 2007. That early activity was in the Young Socialists in the SPD (Jusos), formally the Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Jungsozialistinnen und Jungsozialisten in der SPD. The Jusos are the party's youth organization; under its organizational statute, membership ends at the age of 35. The Bundestag biography records a long period of Juso work that included the district chairmanship in the Upper Palatinate; *Onetz* used the same description when she later stood for the district party leadership.

The statute builds the SPD from local branches (*Ortsvereine*) through sub-districts (*Unterbezirke*) to districts (*Bezirke*), which in a Land such as Bavaria may form a state association. In the Regensburg area Wagner holds office at several of those levels. Her own list of functions names her as deputy chair of the local branch in Kareth-Lappersdorf. The Regensburg sub-district board, 30 voting members elected on 24 May 2025 for two years, lists her as one of two deputy chairs, with Sebastian Koch as chair. On 18 October 2025 the SPD of the rural district of Regensburg re-elected Gaby Griese-Heindl and Petra Lutz as chairs and included Wagner among the assessors.

She is an assessor on the Bavarian board of the Working Group of Social Democratic Women (Arbeitsgemeinschaft sozialdemokratischer Frauen, AsF) for 2026–2028, under chair Micky Wenngatz. The Bavarian AsF states that every woman party member belongs to it automatically, and that its aim is equal standing of women and men in the party and in society. Wagner's functions page also lists her as deputy chair of the AsF in the Regensburg sub-district; the Bundestag biography places the AsF work after the Juso years.

### Upper Palatinate and Bavarian state executive

Wagner has co-chaired the SPD district association in the Upper Palatinate since 2019. At the district congress in Vohenstrauß in October 2026, 116 delegates confirmed the dual leadership: Wagner, from Regensburg, received 80.8 percent and Ismail Ertug, from Amberg, 83.2 percent.

The pairing began on 24 November 2019 at a district congress in Neumarkt in der Oberpfalz, the first time that association elected two chairs. Delegates chose Wagner with the incumbent, Franz Schindler, and elected Ertug, then a Member of the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament), with Sebastian Koch, Marianne Schieder and Uli Grötsch as deputies and Peter Wein as treasurer. Schindler stood down after more than 20 years. At a digital congress on 5 February 2022, Ertug succeeded him with 95 of 117 votes, and Wagner was confirmed as co-chair of an association then reported to have about 7,000 members. After the 2026 congress the board listed Nicole Bäumler, Koch, David Mandrella and Schieder as deputies, with Wein again as treasurer.

On the Bavarian state executive she has served since 2017. The June 2017 issue of the party magazine *Bayern Vorwärts* listed her among the assessors of the executive chosen when Natascha Kohnen became state chair in Schweinfurt. Delegates in Bad Windsheim re-elected her an assessor for the Upper Palatinate on 27 January 2019. At the 75th ordinary state party congress on 27 and 28 September 2025 in Landshut, the executive was elected for two years and Wagner received 65.87 percent in the assessors' ballot. The state association lists her as a voting member of the *Präsidium*, with Ronja Endres and [Sebastian Roloff](/people/sebastian-roloff) as state co-chairs.

### Forum Demokratische Linke 21

The Forum Demokratische Linke 21 (DL21) is a registered association, founded in 2000, that organizes the left inside the SPD. *Vorwärts* reported that it had a single chair until October 2021, when members first elected a trio of equal chairs. The association describes itself as the successor of the Frankfurter Kreis, names Andrea Nahles as its chair until 2008, and states that SPD membership is not required to join. Its office is at the Kurt-Schumacher-Haus in Berlin.

At the members' assembly in Berlin on 29 October 2023, Wagner was elected an assessor (*Beisitzerin*) on the federal board that chose [Jan Dieren](/people/jan-dieren), Erik von Malottki and Alma Kleen as chairs. The Bundestag biography dates her DL21 board membership from that month. A members' assembly in Berlin in November 2025 re-elected that chair trio and a new set of deputy chairs, including Melissa Butt; the board list published afterward still names Wagner among the assessors.

Bavarian members elected a state board on 13 July 2024, with Anja König and Herbert Lohmeyer as chairs and Ronja Endres as a deputy chair. Wagner is listed as an assessor.

## Bundestag candidacies and election results

### 2021 federal election

At the Bundestag election of 26 September 2021, Carolin Wagner was the direct candidate of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in constituency 233, Regensburg, and stood 22nd on the party's Bavarian state list. The constituency had 248,192 eligible voters. Turnout was 80.2 percent (198,937 voters), and 197,712 first votes were valid.

Peter Aumer of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) won the direct mandate with 69,842 first votes (35.3 percent). Wagner finished second with 32,850 (16.6 percent). Stefan Schmidt of Alliance 90/The Greens was third with 30,333 (15.3 percent), ahead of Rainer-Michael Rößler of the [Free Voters](/organizations/free-voters) on 17,906 (9.1 percent), Dieter Arnold of [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany (AfD) on 16,557 (8.4 percent) and Ulrich Lechte of the Free Democratic Party (FDP) on 13,754 (7.0 percent). [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke), whose direct candidate was Eva-Maria Schreiber, received 6,023 first votes (3.0 percent).

Second votes still put the CSU first, with 61,187 (30.9 percent), but the SPD had 34,563 (17.4 percent) and the Greens 32,094 (16.2 percent), followed by the FDP on 18,773 (9.5 percent), the AfD on 17,343 (8.8 percent) and the Free Voters on 16,618 (8.4 percent). Wagner did not win the constituency. She entered the 20th Bundestag from the Bavarian SPD list; Aumer, directly elected in 2017, defended the seat.

### 2025 federal election

The election of 23 February 2025 used the renumbered constituency 232. There were 250,984 eligible voters. Turnout rose to 84.7 percent (212,696 voters), 4.6 percentage points above 2021, and 211,967 first votes were valid. Aumer was again the elected constituency candidate, with 81,105 first votes (38.3 percent, up 2.9 points). Carina Schießl of the AfD was runner-up with 37,964 (17.9 percent, up 9.5 points).

Schmidt, again the Green candidate, received 27,741 first votes (13.1 percent). Wagner received 27,626 (13.0 percent, down 3.6 points) and finished fourth, 115 votes behind him. Regina Seebauer-Sperl of the Free Voters took 11,214 (5.3 percent), Sebastian Wanner of Die Linke 9,736 (4.6 percent), Lechte of the FDP 5,229 (2.5 percent) and Irmgard Freihoffer of the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance 5,151 (2.4 percent).

Second votes ranked the CSU first on 75,683 (35.7 percent), then the AfD on 39,770 (18.7 percent), the Greens on 28,337 (13.4 percent) and the SPD on 23,607 (11.1 percent, down 6.3 points). Die Linke received 14,801 (7.0 percent), the Free Voters 10,447 (4.9 percent), the FDP 7,427 (3.5 percent) and the BSW 6,268 (3.0 percent). In Bavaria the SPD won 11.5 percent of second votes and 14 list seats. Wagner, eighth on that list, was elected to the 21st Bundestag from it. The Bundestag records the mandate as a Bavarian list seat, with a candidacy in constituency 232, and her residence as Lappersdorf.

### The Regensburg constituency

Constituency 232, numbered 233 in 2021, lies in the Upper Palatinate. It comprises the city of Regensburg and most of Landkreis Regensburg, including Lappersdorf, Neutraubling, Regenstauf and Hemau and the Verwaltungsgemeinschaften of Alteglofsheim, Donaustauf, Kallmünz, Laaber, Pielenhofen-Wolfsegg and Sünching. Brennberg and Wörth an der Donau, although in Landkreis Regensburg, are assigned to constituency 233, Schwandorf. The 2025 results volume compares constituency 232 with the 2021 vote in the same area.

The CSU led the first vote in the Regensburg constituency in 2013, with 48.5 percent to the SPD's 22.0 percent, and in 2017, with 40.1 percent to the SPD's 16.7 percent, as well as in 2021 and 2025. Its share fell to 35.3 percent in 2021 and then rose to 38.3 percent in 2025, when Aumer led Schießl by 43,141 votes. Wagner's 16.6 percent in 2021 was the SPD's strongest recent first-vote share in the seat, and second place. In 2025 the AfD and the Greens both finished ahead of the SPD on the first vote and on the second vote.

## Work in the 20th Bundestag

### Committee assignments

Dr. Carolin Wagner sat in the 20th Bundestag from its constituent meeting on 26 October 2021 until the end of that electoral term in 2025. She had been returned on the state list of the SPD in Bavaria for constituency 233, Regensburg.

At the committees' constitutive meetings on 15 December 2021 she became an ordinary member of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment — one of eleven members from the Social Democratic Party of Germany on a 38-member body chaired by Kai Gehring of Alliance 90/The Greens — and of the new Committee on Digital Affairs, chaired by Tabea Rößner, where she was one of ten SPD members. The archived biography also lists her as a deputy member of the Finance Committee and of the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Sustainable Development. From 11 January 2022 she was deputy spokesperson of the SPD working group on education, research and technology assessment, and a member of its working group on migration and integration. On 16 February 2022 the factions jointly proposed her as a substitute on the advisory council of the Federal Network Agency, deputising for [Johannes Schätzl](/people/johannes-schatzl).

### Plenary and legislative work

Her plenary speeches clustered around fixed-term academic employment, school and municipal digitalisation, and research on post-COVID illness.

On 22 June 2023, debating a CDU/CSU major interpellation on the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz, she said that more than 200,000 people worked full-time in academic employment and that 80 per cent were on fixed-term contracts, and she defended minimum contract lengths while noting coalition differences over the bar on collective agreements and the postdoctoral phase. On 29 November 2023 she said the coalition had agreed minima of one year for student assistants, three years for doctoral posts and two years for postdoctoral contracts. At the first reading on 16 October 2024 of the government bill (printed paper 20/11559), taken with a motion from Die Linke (20/10802), she welcomed those minima and family-related extensions for third-party-funded staff, but said the draft still failed to rebalance the postdoctoral phase and called for lifting the tariff lock. The Cabinet had adopted the reform on 27 March 2024. A government archive note states that it did not obtain a parliamentary majority and was not enacted in the 20th legislative period, so the existing act remained in force.

On 18 January 2024, on the government's answer to a CDU/CSU question about a Digitalpakt 2.0 (printed papers 20/8772 and 20/9657), she said about 28,000 schools had used the first DigitalPakt Schule since 2019, with more than €6.5 billion provided. She argued for equal federal and Länder funding, for software, adaptive learning systems and teacher training as well as devices, and for weighting money toward schools in difficult social circumstances. On 13 March 2024, on CDU/CSU and Alternative for Germany motions on smart cities and smart rural regions (printed papers 20/6412, 20/5618 and 20/10302), she opposed further model projects and called for a competence centre and a procurement marketplace to carry solutions into roughly 11,000 municipalities, citing €3 billion for Gigabit funding, most of it, she said, for rural areas.

On 15 March 2024, on funding for basic research into Long COVID, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and post-vaccination syndrome (printed papers 20/8846 and 20/10544), she said clearly more than €180 million was being spent, including €81 million for research close to care and €52 million for children and adolescents. She cited inpatient treatment at the Donaustauf lung clinic, in her constituency, and said vaccination lowered the probability of Long COVID by 58 per cent. On 20 December 2024, answering a CDU/CSU motion on the European Union eIDAS 2.0 regulation (printed paper 20/13735), she described the planned European digital-identity wallet as a way to prove documents such as a mobile driving licence. Data protection, she said, should precede speed in the implementing acts; the work had been given to the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation, with prototypes due by autumn 2026, and interoperability, zero-knowledge proofs and usability were already the government's course.

On 3 June 2022 the roll calls record her voting against both the amendment of Article 87a of the Basic Law, anchoring a special fund for the Bundeswehr, and the statute establishing it. The final counts were 568 to 96, with 20 abstentions, on the constitutional amendment, and 590 to 80, with 7 abstentions, on the statute; both passed. In a written explanation under §31 of the rules of procedure she described the Russian attack on Ukraine as having put the European peace order in question and called better Bundeswehr equipment fundamentally right, but objected that the fund omitted diplomacy, development cooperation and protection against disinformation. Keeping the debt brake while rejecting tax rises for wealthy people, she wrote, risked setting military spending against education, science, social security and the ecological transformation, and she could not assent to the fund.

## Work in the 21st Bundestag

The 21st Bundestag was constituted on 25 March 2025. The SPD parliamentary group lists Dr. Carolin Wagner for that term on the Bavaria state list, with Regensburg (constituency 232) as her constituency and Weiden in der Oberpfalz (constituency 234) as the further district assigned to her, and records her as chair of the group's Bavarian Land group.

### Committee assignments

On 15 May 2025 the Bundestag set up 24 standing committees. Wagner is a full member of the Committee for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation and of the Committee for Research, Technology, Space and Technology Assessment, and a substitute on the Committee for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and on the Petitions Committee. Structured data on her Bundestag biography date all four roles from 25 March 2025. The SPD group dates the seats, and the matching working-group places, from 21 May 2025, the day the two full committees were constituted and already listed her. The group page uses the title "Committee for Digitalisation and State Modernisation".

The digital committee, of 30 full members, covers digital sovereignty, infrastructure, the digital economy and the digital state, administrative digitalisation, bureaucracy, regulated use of artificial intelligence and simpler procedures; [Hansjörg Durz](/people/hansjorg-durz) (CDU/CSU) chairs it. The research committee, also of 30, covers the research location, artificial intelligence, quantum technology, supercomputing and space, and is served by the Office of Technology Assessment at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology; Karl Lauterbach (SPD) was elected chair on 21 May 2025. The 38-member education and family committee covers family policy, work and family, equality, education and ageing. Article 45c of the Basic Law gives the Petitions Committee the requests and complaints addressed to the Bundestag under Article 17.

In 2026 she spoke on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (protocol 21/66, 20 March), the ministry for digital affairs and state modernisation after one year (21/77, 7 May), organised research fraud (21/86, 25 June), the autumn 2025 European Space Agency ministerial subscription (21/73, 22 April), and fixed-term contracts in science (21/99, 8 October).

### Spokesperson roles

Since 26 June 2025 she has been deputy spokesperson of the SPD working group on Digital Affairs and State Modernisation, with Johannes Schätzl as spokesperson and [Parsa Marvi](/people/parsa-marvi) as the other deputy. The research working group lists her only as an ordinary member from 21 May 2025, under spokesperson [Oliver Kaczmarek](/people/oliver-kaczmarek), with no deputy named. Her biography, based on members' own statements, still calls her deputy spokesperson for both portfolios, and the group also lists her as a substitute from 21 May 2025 in its education and petitions working groups.

### Advisory boards

From 25 June 2025 the SPD group lists her as a substitute on the advisory council of the Federal Network Agency, whose 16 Bundestag and 16 Bundesrat members propose the agency's leadership, are heard on specified telecommunications and postal decisions, and may demand information from the agency. Printed paper 21/1651 of 17 September 2025 nominated her as an SPD substitute, with Sebastian Roloff, Johannes Schätzl and [Nina Scheer](/people/nina-scheer) as members; the biography calls it a personal substitute seat from June 2025.

On 13 November 2025 the Bundestag elected her and Schätzl to the advisory board of the Data Protection Foundation (printed paper 21/2727). The Leipzig foundation, from 2013, is an independent privacy body and a forum for society, politics, business and research; its unpaid board advises the foundation and may propose projects. The group and the disclosure date the seat from 11 November 2025, while the narrative biography writes "Stiftung Denkmalschutz" for it.

From 14 October 2025 the disclosure lists a deputy seat on the advisory board of Mobilfunkinfrastrukturgesellschaft mbH (Naumburg), which accompanies the company's mobile-coverage work with the Länder, municipalities, ministries and governing Bundestag groups. From 7 October 2025 she is a trustee of Kompetenzzentrum Technik-Diversity-Chancengleichheit e.V. in Bielefeld, which promotes equal opportunities for women and men in technology; the SPD page dates that seat from 8 October. She is an honorary trustee of the University of Regensburg from October 2024; the university says the board supports it in public and in research and teaching, and lists her.

From 1 January 2026 the disclosure records a trusteeship at the Weizenbaum Institute in Berlin, whose board must approve basic strategic, financial and personnel decisions and changes to the research programme; the institute's published list of funders and consortium representatives does not name her. From 21 April 2026 it records the advisory board of #SheTransformsIT at Bitkom, presented by Bitkom as a cross-sector effort to increase the share of girls and women in digitalisation; the initiative lists her as deputy spokesperson for digital affairs. The disclosure also lists, from 18 November 2025, the Sparkassenverband Bayern advisory council on savings-bank policy in Munich. On her own information, the biography adds the German-Nordic Parliamentary Group from October 2025.

## Chair of the Bavarian SPD parliamentary group

### Election in 2023

In the parliamentary group of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the Bundestag, a Landesgruppe brings together the members from one federal state. The group uses these bodies to pool regional interests, to discuss how federal policy affects the Länder, and to keep contact with state and local politicians; it has 15 Landesgruppen plus a Landesgruppe Ost for the eastern states. The Bavarian Landesgruppe is that body for Bavaria. On 25 September 2023 its 23 members elected a dual leadership, Carolin Wagner of Regensburg and Carsten Träger of Fürth, to serve for the rest of the legislative period.

*Carolin Wagner and Carsten Träger after their election as joint chairs of the Bavarian SPD Landesgruppe in September 2023.*

The *Augsburger Allgemeine* reported that the dual chair had been agreed before the ballot, and that Wagner, a member of the Bundestag since 2021, defeated the incumbent Marianne Schieder by 12 votes to 11. Schieder, also from the Upper Palatinate, confirmed the result and said she had stood with [Michael Schrodi](/people/michael-schrodi). Two deputy chairs, [Bärbel Kofler](/people/barbel-kofler) and Schrodi, lost their posts by the same margin. Schieder said nobody had complained about her work. Some members called the change a "Putsch"; Christoph Schmid described it as a reorientation aimed at a stronger media presence. The contest was reported against the coming list for 2025: a smaller Bundestag was expected, the SPD wins no constituencies in Bavaria, and a Landesgruppe office was treated internally as an advantage in the competition for a safe list place. Schieder would not say whether the challenge was that kind of manoeuvre, but said she would again seek a good place on the Bavarian list.

Ulrike Bahr of Augsburg was re-elected as a deputy chair, while [Carmen Wegge](/people/carmen-wegge) and [Bernd Rützel](/people/bernd-rutzel) joined the board. Träger said, "We want to become more political and weigh in more," on questions that concern both the federation and Bavaria. Wagner said the aim was to strengthen the group's links with the party and the Landtag parliamentary group beyond the leadership alone.

### Role after the 2025 election

At the 2025 Bundestag election the SPD's share of second votes in Bavaria fell to 11.5 percent, from 18.0 percent in 2021. The Bavarian election administration lists 14 SPD members as returned, all of them on the state list, with Träger in list place 1 and Wagner in place 8. Bahr was not among them.

On 25 June 2025 the Landesgruppe re-elected Wagner and Träger as a duo. Wegge and Rützel were confirmed as deputy chairs, and Schrodi was elected to the third deputy post that Bahr's departure had left open. Wagner described the 14 members as regionally rooted MPs who would take Bavarian concerns into federal politics; Träger said the chairs should make visible the work those members did in departments of a federal government the SPD was still part of.

Träger died on 21 March 2026, aged 52, in Innsbruck, after collapsing during a ski holiday. He had been parliamentary state secretary in the federal environment ministry since May 2025. The Bundestag stood in silence on 25 March, and its president, [Julia Klöckner](/people/julia-klockner), remembered him as an environmental politician of real expertise who had been fair across party lines. On 30 March the teacher [David Mandrella](/people/david-mandrella) took his seat. The SPD group's published overview of its Landesgruppen lists Wagner as chair, with Rützel, Schrodi and Wegge as deputies, and counts 14 Bavarian members in a parliamentary group of 120.

## Political positions

Wagner's positions on the record cluster around student aid and academic employment, research on post-infectious disease, digital administration, and the distribution of public money. On spending and asylum she has more than once voted against the majority of the SPD.

### Education, research and academic employment

In the Bundestag on 13 June 2024, during debate on a further amendment of the BAföG, Wagner quoted the 1971 justification by Federal Youth Minister Käte Strobel and called the grant a milestone of the coalition led by [Willy Brandt](/people/willy-brandt). She welcomed a higher maximum award and a study-start payment while the repayment ceiling stayed unchanged, and said the SPD would have gone further because equality of educational opportunity had still not been reached.

On 16 October 2024, at the first reading of a reform of the Wissenschaftszeitvertragsgesetz, she said researchers remained for an "unbearably long" time without a prospect even after a doctorate, often while starting a family, and that younger researchers were leaving the German system. She backed minimum contract lengths and disadvantage compensation for third-party-funded staff, but said the SPD could not yet accept the draft because it did not rebalance the postdoctoral phase. She wanted the bar on collective bargaining in academic employment lifted, with detailed rules left to the social partners.

On 15 March 2024, answering a CDU/CSU question on research into Long COVID, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome and post-vaccination syndrome, she said hundreds of thousands of people had not regained their former lives. She defended spending "well over 180 million euros", including 81 million for care-related research and 52 million for children and young people, cited the Donaustauf lung clinic in her Regensburg constituency, and said both money and time were required; she stated that vaccination cut the probability of Long COVID by 58 percent.

On 7 May 2026 she opposed an AfD motion to evaluate the excellence strategy, saying it would let politicians decide which research was legitimate and would threaten freedom and international cooperation, including the AWIPEV climate station on Svalbard. On 24 September 2026, after a Spectrum launch by Isar Aerospace from Andøya, she argued for European launch capacity independent of providers such as SpaceX, a national space law on liability and licensing, and collective agreements for jobs in the sector.

### Digital policy and state modernization

On 20 December 2024, on a CDU/CSU motion to implement the revised eIDAS regulation, Wagner described the European digital identity wallet as a way to prove identity and documents online, including a mobile driving licence, with personal data left under the user's control. Data protection, she said, had to come before speed, and the interior ministry's plan—prototypes by autumn 2026, carried out by the Federal Agency for Disruptive Innovation (SPRIND)—was already the right course.

On 21 April 2023 she defended the federal smart-city programme, which she put at 820 million euros for 73 municipalities, and rejected a new federal competence centre as a top-down takeover incompatible with the federal order. The existing coordination office, she said, should instead spread model projects to other municipalities. On 7 May 2026 she called the new Federal Ministry for Digital Affairs and State Modernisation overdue, because digital policy had been overshadowed inside the transport ministry, and pointed to a "Deutschland-Stack", the EU identity wallet, a data-centre strategy and a power to block IT projects. Health data, industrial secrets and tax returns, she argued, should not sit in US centres reachable under the CLOUD Act; she called for more open-source software and a stronger Centre for Digital Sovereignty (ZenDiS). On 20 March 2026, in debate on European rules for artificial intelligence, the Bundestag's record summarised her view that the AI Act balanced benefits and risks rather than forcing a choice between innovation and regulation, and that she wanted independent testing plus prohibitions and heavy penalties for AI tools used in sexual abuse.

### Social policy and migration

On 3 June 2022 Wagner voted against both the amendment of Article 87a of the Basic Law, which allowed a debt-financed Bundeswehr special fund outside the debt brake, and the bill establishing the fund. On each roll call she was among a small group of SPD members voting no. In a written explanation she called Russia's attack on Ukraine a challenge to the European peace order and the fund "fundamentally right and important", but said security also included diplomacy, development cooperation and defence against disinformation. Her main objection was distributional: without tax increases for wealthy people, and with the debt brake kept, military spending would compete with a socially just ecological transition, education and science, and social security.

Her later asylum votes were not uniform. On 27 June 2025 the Bundestag adopted, by 444 votes to 133, a CDU/CSU–SPD bill suspending for two years the family reunification of people with subsidiary protection, with hardship cases still possible. Abgeordnetenwatch named Hakan Demir and [Maja Wallstein](/people/maja-wallstein) as the only SPD members voting no. The *Mittelbayerische Zeitung* reported that three of the four members from Regensburg backed the tightening and that criticism from the Left, which called the result "a disgrace", focused on Wagner; what bothered her, the paper said, was an attack on Germany's asylum efforts. On 27 February 2026 she was the only member of the governing coalition to vote against the bill aligning German law with the reformed Common European Asylum System, which passed 309 to 260, with two other SPD members abstaining. The *Mittelbayerische* headlined her account "The welfare state does not suffer under migration", and noted that she voted no even though Nancy Faeser, then interior minister, had negotiated the European compromise.

## Public reception

### Reporting on parliamentary votes

On 27 June 2025 the Bundestag passed, by 444 votes to 133, a CDU/CSU–SPD bill suspending family reunification for people with subsidiary protection for two years. Carolin Wagner voted yes, while telling the chamber that Article 6 of the Basic Law protects family regardless of origin or status, that the suspension was harmful to integration, and that “Familien gehören zusammen.” She called the two-year limit the SPD’s compromise against an open-ended suspension and said she backed the bill “trotz erheblicher Kritik” only because it was in the coalition agreement; with asylum numbers falling, the Union should ask whether it was still targeted “oder ob sie sich vielmehr als unmenschlich, nicht zielgerichtet und unwirksam erweisen.” On 4 July the *Mittelbayerische Zeitung* reported that three of Regensburg’s four Bundestag members had voted for the change and that Die Linke aimed its criticism at Wagner, under the headline “Eine Schande.” What disturbed her most, the paper wrote, was an attack on Germany’s asylum efforts.

On 27 February 2026 the Bundestag adopted the law transposing the European Union asylum reform, by 309 votes to 260, with two abstentions. Abgeordnetenwatch listed Wagner among the no votes and SPD members Jan Dieren and [Rasha Nasr](/people/rasha-nasr) as the abstainers. In an interview published on 3 March, the *Mittelbayerische Zeitung* called her the only coalition member to vote against the new asylum rules, although former interior minister Nancy Faeser had negotiated that compromise in Brussels to curb illegal migration. The interview appeared under the headline “Sozialstaat leidet nicht unter Migration.”

### Coalition and local disputes

The coalition agreement raised the monthly BAföG housing supplement from 380 to 440 euros for the next winter semester, but research minister Dorothee Bär doubted it would pass, and the *Tagesspiegel* reported that CDU parliamentary leader Jens Spahn had renounced the financing deal. On 1 June 2026 Wagner, chair of the SPD’s 14-member Bavarian Bundestag group, posted on Instagram: “Wenn die BAFöG-Erhöhung nicht zum Wintersemester kommt – dann gehen wir!” The *Süddeutsche Zeitung* reported the next day that the post, read as a threat to leave the coalition, was deleted; her office manager confirmed the deletion, and the office would not comment further. The office said it did not want a coalition break and was relying on talks with the Union; Bavarian SPD sources called the post an “Ausrutscher” and treated the deletion as proof she had not meant it. The *Tagesspiegel* cited the post as a sign of SPD anger, and deputy parliamentary leader [Wiebke Esdar](/people/wiebke-esdar) called Bär’s remarks simply false.

On 1 April 2026 the *Mittelbayerische Zeitung* reported a row, just before Regensburg’s mayoral runoff, over a CSU announcement of money for an outpatient clinic for myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome. Wagner read a local CSU message as “Tue Gutes und rede darüber” turned into a substanceless campaign maneuver; the initiator, the paper wrote, was annoyed but admitted a mistake.

In October 2026 the *Münchner Merkur* reported a Marburger Bund survey in which almost 99 percent of responding doctors at the University Hospital Regensburg said further cuts would endanger patients. Chief executive Oliver Kölbl called parts of the survey suggestive and defended cutting at least 40 of 660 physician posts, while science minister [Markus Blume](/people/markus-blume) branded the union’s intervention “unseriös und unlauter.” Wagner, with Landtag members Nicole Bäumler and Katja Weitzel, called the findings alarming and demanded an end to a three-month hiring delay she described as “ohnehin Unsinn.”

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/carolin-wagner