# Jasmina Hostert

# Jasmina Hostert

Jasmina Hostert (born 3 December 1982 in Sarajevo) is a German politician of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) (SPD) and a member of the Bundestag from Baden-Württemberg. The Bundestag lists her occupation as a political scientist with a Magister Artium. She sat in the 20th electoral term, which began when that Bundestag was constituted on 26 October 2021, and returned for the 21st term, constituted on 25 March 2025. Her mandate is on the Baden-Württemberg state list, and she is associated with constituency 260, Böblingen.

In an essay published on 27 August 2015, Hostert wrote that she grew up in Sarajevo, that the Bosnian War broke out in April 1992, and that one morning in October 1992 a grenade fell into the courtyard while she was standing outside a relative’s house. She wrote that doctors amputated her right arm, that a German team from the aid organisation Cap Anamur advised treatment abroad, and that she and her father then travelled via Croatia and Slovenia to Bonn. [Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel) and the *Stuttgarter Nachrichten* have reported the same outline: she was nine, lost an arm to a grenade during the [Siege of Sarajevo](/facts/siege-of-sarajevo), and left the city with her father. In the 2015 essay she named Maria Hostert, a retired grammar-school teacher who died in 2003, as her adoptive mother, and wrote that Hostert had supported her since 1994 and held custody; the *Stuttgarter Nachrichten* has described the woman who raised her in Bonn as a foster mother. The Bundestag biography, which the parliament says rests on the member’s own information, records primary school in Wachtberg-Pech in 1993–94, the Amos-Comenius-Gymnasium in Bonn from 1994 to 2000, A-levels at The King's School, Canterbury in 2000–02, and study from 2003 to 2009 of political science, modern history and art history at the University of Bonn. The same essay’s standfirst stated that she had been a German citizen for a year.

Before entering parliament she was, according to that biography, a staff member of the SPD district association in Böblingen in 2012, office manager and assistant to the Landtag deputy Florian Wahl from 2013 to 2016, a history educator at the Haus der Geschichte in Stuttgart from 2015 to 2019, and managing director of the SPD group in the Stuttgart regional assembly from January 2016 to October 2021. She joined the SPD in 2009, chaired its Böblingen district association from 2015, joined the Baden-Württemberg state executive and presidium in 2016, and has been a deputy state chair since 2018. The state party again elected her a deputy chair on 19 June 2026, with Viviane Sigg, Yannik Hummel and [Parsa Marvi](/people/parsa-marvi). She was a Böblingen city councillor from 2019 to 2022 and a member of the Stuttgart regional assembly from 2019 to 2024.

In Böblingen in 2021 the SPD took 40,844 first votes (21.1 percent), behind the [Christian Democratic Union of Germany](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) on 57,504 (29.7 percent). In 2025 the SPD’s 34,198 first votes (16.8 percent) placed third, behind [Marc Biadacz](/people/marc-biadacz) of the CDU (76,033 votes, 37.3 percent), who kept the constituency, and Markus Frohnmaier of [the Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany (34,826 votes, 17.1 percent). She entered on the state list both times; before the 2025 election the *Sindelfinger Zeitung* / *Böblinger Zeitung* reported that the SPD had placed her seventh on that list. In the 21st Bundestag the SPD group has named her, since 21 May 2025, its spokesperson for education, family, seniors, women and youth, and a full member of that committee. She has been a full member of the Committee on European Union Affairs since 13 November 2025, after a period as deputy member, a deputy member of the Interior Committee since 21 May 2025, and, since 15 September 2025, chair of the German–Southeast European parliamentary group. The same page records her on the faction executive from 3 June 2025, as a parliamentary secretary from 21 May 2025 until 4 May 2026, and, from 25 June 2025, on the board of trustees of the Federal Agency for Civic Education. The Bundestag biography lists her as president of the Württemberg disabled and rehabilitation sports association from 2019 to 2023 and as a member of the German Olympic Sports Confederation’s human-rights advisory board since 2022.

## Early life and education

### Childhood in Sarajevo and the Bosnian War

Jasmina Hostert was born Jasmina Pašić on 3 December 1982 in Sarajevo, then part of Yugoslavia. An archived Bundestag biography lists primary school there, in Bosnia and Herzegovina, from 1989 to 1992. In a 2015 essay she wrote that the household had been comfortable: her father had a well-paid job and a flat bought in the early 1980s, and weekends were spent at her grandparents' house in the old town.

She dated the start of the Bosnian War to April 1992. Families were already leaving; her father, she wrote, refused to go and said the unrest would pass. Schools closed, children stayed indoors, and electricity, water and food ran short as fighting neared the flat, so the family moved in with an aunt and cousins, still within reach of bombs, grenades and snipers. A 2016 profile described shells falling day and night on the Serb-encircled city during the Siege of Sarajevo. In March 2022 she told the *Stuttgarter Nachrichten* that she had hidden in a cellar and that power and water failed from one day to the next.

In October 1992, aged nine, she was badly injured by a grenade and her right arm was amputated. She wrote that she had been standing in front of the house when the grenade fell into the courtyard, that the wound stayed infected, and that a further amputation was a risk. A 2016 profile added that antibiotics were scarce and that blood poisoning threatened. Doctors from Cap Anamur advised treatment in Germany. In a 2021 [Deutsche Welle](/organizations/deutsche-welle) interview she remembered playing in the yard with other children, the grenade striking a parked car, and waking in hospital without the arm; those Cap Anamur physicians, she said, were the first Germans she met. *Der Spiegel* of 2 April 2022 led with her line, "Ich habe geschrien: ›Gebt mir meinen Arm zurück!‹"

No seat was free on the relief flights, so she and her father left with a smuggler along the front, where the firing did not stop. Her essay says the journey took several weeks, through Croatia and Slovenia, and ended in Bonn, where she was operated on twice more. She later told Deutsche Welle that they left about four months after the injury, via Kiseljak, Croatia, Slovenia and Austria. The 2016 profile reported that the smuggler was killed on the return journey; Hostert said that without him she might not have got out.

### Schooling in Germany and Britain

She was not sent to a refugee hostel. Injured refugees, she wrote, were housed with German families; she and her father stayed with Maria Hostert, who later adopted her, and she took the name Hostert. Maria, a retired Gymnasium teacher, supported her from 1994 over residence status and school and died of kidney disease in 2003. Her father returned to Bosnia. She has said she was not close to her biological mother, that she had wanted to go back to Sarajevo, and that Maria persuaded her to stay when the rest of the family left.

The Bundestag records primary school in Wachtberg-Pech, in the Rhein-Sieg district, for 1993–94, then the Amos-Comenius-Gymnasium in Bonn from 1994 to 2000. She wrote that German came quickly, but that after about half a year her teachers recommended a Hauptschule or at best a Realschule because, at ten, she still could not speak or write it fluently. Maria Hostert, a Gymnasium teacher herself, treated that as a language gap, and she transferred to the Gymnasium. From 2000 to 2002 the Bundestag lists the upper school and the Abitur, taken as A-levels, at King's School, Canterbury. The 2015 essay calls those years a boarding school in England and does not name the school.

She wrote that for years the foreigners' office issued only a renewable *Duldung*, applied the *Residenzpflicht*, held her passport at renewals, and asked doctors how long the trauma would last before she could return. When certificates were rejected, she wrote, deportation was threatened twice, although Maria Hostert had custody and met the costs; she later tied the trauma test to a 1998 change in the law.

### Studies at the University of Bonn

From 2003 to 2009 she studied political science, modern history and art history at the University of Bonn and received a Magister Artium, the degree the Bundestag records; it lists her occupation as political scientist (*Politikwissenschaftlerin*). In the 2015 essay she wrote that she finished in 2009 with the mark "sehr gut". She joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany in 2009, toward the end of the degree.

## Career before parliament

### Staff work for the SPD and the Landtag

Before she entered the Bundestag, Jasmina Hostert worked in party and parliamentary offices in Böblingen and Stuttgart. The dates are those in Bundestag biographies, which the parliament states rest on the member's own information. The text for the 20th Bundestag lists maternity protection and parental leave in 2011–2012; a 2012 job with the Kreisverband Böblingen of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD); work from 2013 to 2016 as office manager and parliamentary assistant to Florian Wahl, then an SPD member of the Landtag in Böblingen; and, from January 2016 to October 2021, managing director (Geschäftsführerin) of the SPD-Regionalfraktion Stuttgart. The biography for the 21st Bundestag repeats the jobs but omits the leave, and the required disclosure of her pre-mandate occupation again names the managing-director post.

A June 2015 *Kreiszeitung* profile, reprinted by the SPD Stadtverband Böblingen, matches that outline only in part. It says that after the birth of her daughter Ella she took, during parental leave, a mini-job in the SPD office in Böblingen, opened in 2012, and that from the end of 2012 she worked for Landtag member Florian Wahl as his scientific assistant. The local report thus starts the Wahl job earlier than the 2013 date in the Bundestag biography and does not use the title office manager.

The SPD statute builds the party from local branches, sub-districts (Unterbezirke) and districts, allows other names for those units, and has political decisions formed from the bottom up; the Böblingen SPD uses the name Kreisverband. Wahl sat in the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg, the elected representation of the people, whose members choose the minister-president, pass laws and the budget, and oversee the executive. Section 6 of the law on Landtag members has the state reimburse a member, on proof, for employees, interns or mandate-related services, up to a ceiling tied to public-sector pay.

From January 2016 the biographies record her as managing director of the SPD group in the regional assembly of the Verband Region Stuttgart. A 1994 state law established the Verband for Stuttgart and the districts of Böblingen, Esslingen, Göppingen, Ludwigsburg and Rems-Murr. Its Regionalversammlung, elected every five years and called by the Verband the region's parliament, has at least 80 members. Statutory tasks include regional planning, the S-Bahn and other regional public transport, economic development and parts of waste disposal. She reported leaving the post in October 2021.

### Historical education at the Haus der Geschichte

From 2015 to 2019, overlapping the end of the Wahl job and the first years with the regional SPD group, the biography lists Hostert as a historical educator (Geschichtsvermittlerin) at the Haus der Geschichte in Stuttgart. That institution is the Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg, which calls itself Germany's first state museum of political history. A state-government working group began planning it in 1987, the first exhibition opened in 1992, and since 2002 it has occupied Konrad-Adenauer-Straße 16 on Stuttgart's Kulturmeile.

Its permanent exhibition, about 2,100 square metres, uses original objects to cover the south-west since 1789, and a staff of about 50 also prepares exhibitions and memorial sites elsewhere in the state. The education service, Geschichtsvermittlung, runs guided tours and workshops, including for schools. The museum says at least 100,000 people a year use its programmes and that about 40 percent of visitors are pupils and young people under 18. The biography gives Hostert's title and the years 2015–2019, not the programmes she worked on or whether the museum post was salaried.

## Party offices in Baden-Württemberg

### District and local party roles

Hostert joined the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 2009. In January 2012 the Young Socialists in the SPD (Jusos) of the Böblingen district elected her, then under the name Jasmina Sijercic, as a deputy chair. Her biography for the 20th Bundestag dates that post to 2012–2013. From 2013 to 2015 she sat on the board of the SPD city association (Stadtverband) in Böblingen.

In 2015 she became chair of the SPD Kreisverband Böblingen. Under the state party statute, district associations follow the boundaries of the urban and rural districts, so the Kreisverband is the SPD organisation for the Landkreis whose seat is Böblingen. From 2015 to 2017 she was also deputy chair of the state working group on migration and diversity (AG Migration und Vielfalt).

She gave up the district chair in 2025. In a members' circular in early September she said she would not stand again at the annual meeting on 21 October in Ehningen, citing her Berlin workload after the SPD Bundestag group made her spokesperson for education, family, senior citizens, women and youth, and a wish to let someone else grow into the office. She dated the chairmanship from 2015 and spoke of ten years in the post, including what she called the recovery of a seat in the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg and of a Bundestag mandate after more than twenty years; the *Stuttgarter Zeitung* headline referred to fifteen years, longer than the chairmanship itself. On 21 October the Ehningen meeting elected Samet Mutlu, a 27-year-old councillor in Sindelfingen and office manager to the SPD member of the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament) [René Repasi](/people/rene-repasi), as her successor. The Bundestag biography, still worded this way on its October 2026 update, continued to list her as district chair "since 2015."

### State executive

The Landesvorstand leads the SPD in Baden-Württemberg and carries out decisions of the state party congress. The published statute provides for one state chair, four deputy chairs meant to come from the four Regierungsbezirke, a general secretary, a treasurer and 20 further members, with a smaller presidium for day-to-day business.

At the congress in Heilbronn on 22 October 2016, Hostert was elected one of those further members (Beisitzerin) on the first ballot with 200 votes, at the congress that also elected Leni Breymaier state chair. In November 2016 the new executive added her, the Böblingen district chair, to the presidium and made her membership officer (Mitgliederbeauftragte). Her Bundestag biography records both executive and presidium membership from 2016, and the deputy chair from 2018.

On 24 November 2018, at the congress in the Sindelfingen civic hall, delegates elected her a deputy chair with 242 votes in favour (80.13 percent), 32 against and 28 abstentions. She took the Nordwürttemberg post held by Frederick Brütting; the other deputies were Gabi Rolland (Südbaden), Parsa Marvi (Nordbaden) and Dorothea Kliche-Behnke (Südwürttemberg), and Andreas Stoch became state chair.

At the congress in Ulm, [Isabel Cademartori](/people/isabel-cademartori) and Robin Mesarosch were elected the two state chairs on 19 June 2026, with 87.8 and 78.5 percent. The party reported that Hostert was re-elected a deputy chair with 83.2 percent and Marvi with 73.0 percent; Yannik Hummel, a forestry worker and student, received 80.9 percent and Landtag member Viviane Sigg 85.9 percent, replacing Kliche-Behnke and [Rita Schwarzelühr-Sutter](/people/rita-schwarzeluhr-sutter), who did not stand again.

### Municipal and regional mandates

For the elections of 26 May 2019 the Böblingen SPD presented Hostert, with Florian Wahl, as a lead candidate for the city council (Gemeinderat), second on its city list. She was a city councillor from 2019 to 2022. In 2022 the *Stuttgarter Nachrichten* reported that she was giving up the seat and that a successor was not yet settled.

From 2019 to 2024 she was a regional councillor (Regionalrätin) in the Verband Region Stuttgart. The Regionalversammlung, which the association calls the region's parliament, is elected every five years by voters in Stuttgart and the districts of Böblingen, Esslingen, Göppingen, Ludwigsburg and Rems-Murr, and has at least 80 members. Its directory for the 2019–2024 term, when the assembly had 88 members, listed her for the Böblingen constituency, assigned her transport and placed her on the transport committee, and still noted a city-council mandate. At that term's last sitting she received the silver honorary pin among members not continuing into the assembly constituted on 18 September 2024.

## Bundestag elections

Jasmina Hostert was the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) candidate in Bundestag constituency 260, Böblingen, in Baden-Württemberg, at the 2017, 2021 and 2025 elections to the Bundestag. Voters have two votes. The first chooses a constituency candidate by plurality; the second chooses a party's closed state list and decides how many seats the party receives. From the 2025 election, a party candidate who finishes first in a constituency receives that seat only if the party's second votes in the state cover it (*Zweitstimmendeckung*). Seats still left are filled in state-list order, so a candidate who loses the constituency can enter parliament on the list. Hostert did not win the direct mandate in any of the three elections. She entered in 2021, and again in 2025, from the SPD's Baden-Württemberg list.

### 2017 candidacy

At the SPD state delegate meeting in Schwäbisch Gmünd on 11 March 2017, Hostert was placed 25th on the Baden-Württemberg list, with 280 votes in favour, 15 against and 10 abstentions (91.80 percent). She also stood in constituency 260. The election to the 19th Bundestag was held on 24 September 2017. The final result listed 245,678 eligible voters and turnout of 80.0 percent (196,557 voters). Of 194,286 valid first votes, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) received 75,323 (38.8 percent) and the SPD 38,053 (19.6 percent). *[Die Welt](/organizations/die-welt)*, reporting the preliminary count, named Marc Biadacz as the CDU winner and Hostert as the SPD candidate, then Florian Toncar of the Free Democratic Party (Germany) (12.8 percent), Tobias Bacherle of Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) (11.9 percent), Markus Frohnmaier of the Alternative for Germany (11.2 percent) and Richard Pitterle of [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) (5.0 percent). The final first-vote totals at those shares were 24,867 for the FDP, 23,206 for the Greens, 21,842 for the AfD and 9,715 for Die Linke. SPD second votes in the constituency were 30,296 (15.5 percent). Abgeordnetenwatch lists her for 2017 as a Böblingen candidate on list place 25, with 19.60 percent, and not as a member returned at that election.

### 2021 election

On 8 May 2021 the SPD's state delegate assembly adopted a Baden-Württemberg list with Hostert in ninth place. The election to the 20th Bundestag was on 26 September 2021. In constituency 260 there were 245,553 eligible voters and turnout was 79.5 percent (195,335 voters). Of 193,794 valid first votes, the CDU won 57,504 (29.7 percent). The *Süddeutsche Zeitung* named Marc Josef Biadacz as the re-elected direct member and Hostert as second, on 21.1 percent. The SPD's final first-vote total was 40,844, the figure Abgeordnetenwatch records as her personal vote, with list place 9. The FDP received 32,184 first votes (16.6 percent), the Greens 30,211 (15.6 percent) and the AfD 16,175 (8.3 percent). SPD second votes were 39,955 (20.6 percent) of 194,114 valid second votes. The final results booklet includes SPD list place 9 in Baden-Württemberg among the places filled. The Bundestag's biography for the 20th electoral term states that she was elected via the state list and associates her with constituency 260.

### 2025 election

The election to the 21st Bundestag was held on 23 February 2025. The *Sindelfinger Zeitung*/*Böblinger Zeitung* reported that 320 delegates at the SPD meeting in Schwäbisch Gmünd put Hostert in list place 7 with 92.3 percent, after ninth place in 2021.

*First-vote shares in Bundestag constituency 260 Böblingen at the 2025 federal election.*

The final result listed 243,100 eligible voters and turnout of 84.3 percent (204,946 voters). Of 203,582 valid first votes, Marc Josef Biadacz (CDU) was elected with 76,033 (37.3 percent). The preliminary results named Markus-Cornel Frohnmaier (AfD) as runner-up. The final AfD first-vote total was 34,826 (17.1 percent) and the SPD total 34,198 (16.8 percent). The Greens received 27,409 (13.5 percent), the FDP 12,438 (6.1 percent) and Die Linke 9,936 (4.9 percent). The same preliminary booklet lists Tobias Björn Bacherle as the Greens' candidate in constituency 260 and among successors, not among those preliminarily elected. SPD second votes were 29,383 (14.4 percent). On the preliminary SPD allocation for Baden-Württemberg, Hostert is the candidate on list place 7. Her biography for the 21st term states that she was elected on the state list while also standing in constituency 260, and Abgeordnetenwatch records list position 7 and a mandate won through the list.

## Twentieth Bundestag

Hostert took her seat in the 20th Bundestag when the Bundestag constituted itself on 26 October 2021. The archived biography for that term records her as a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) elected on the Baden-Württemberg state list and associated with constituency 260, Böblingen. There the CDU won the direct mandate with 29.7 percent of the first votes (57,504); the SPD's first-vote share was 21.1 percent (40,844) and its second-vote share 20.6 percent (39,955). That membership runs to 25 March 2025, the day the 21st Bundestag was to convene; under Article 39 of the Basic Law an electoral term ends when the new Bundestag meets.

### Committee assignments

For the whole term the archived biography lists her as a full member of the Committee on Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and of the Sports Committee, and as a deputy member of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union, the Transport Committee, and the Children's Commission (*Kinderkommission*). Minutes of the Sports Committee's first sitting, on 15 December 2021, place her with the SPD's full members on the 19-member committee the Bundestag had decided to establish on 9 December 2021. The Children's Commission, a subcommittee of the family committee, constituted itself on 24 March 2022 with one full member and one substitute from each group. The Bundestag named Sarah Lahrkamp as the SPD member and Hostert as substitute; Lahrkamp took the first turn of the rotating chair.

### Parliamentary groups on the Adriatic and Southeast Europe

Parliamentary groups (*Parlamentariergruppen*) are cross-party bodies for contact with other parliaments, not legislative committees. A secretariat list of their boards dated 12 July 2024 names Hostert as a deputy chair of the Northern Adriatic Parliamentary Group, covering Croatia and Slovenia, under the chair Oliver Luksic of the Free Democratic Party. The other deputy chairs were Christian Haase (CDU/CSU), Dr. [Irene Mihalic](/people/irene-mihalic) of Alliance 90/The Greens and Dr. Christian Wirth of the Alternative for Germany. The same list has the German–Southeast European Parliamentary Group—Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia—chaired by [Dirk Vöpel](/people/dirk-vopel) (SPD). Hostert is not on that board. Her biography, which the Bundestag states rests on members' own information, nevertheless describes her since 2021 as deputy chair of the Northern Adriatic group and a member of the Southeast Europe group.

### Legislative and plenary work

On 6 April 2022, in the agreed debate on the 30th anniversary of the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina (plenary protocol 20/27), Hostert described 6 April 1992 in Sarajevo, when she was nine and lost an arm in a shell attack. She argued that Bosnia's stability had to be secured before it was again too late, compared images from the war in Ukraine—Mariupol and Bucha—with Prijedor and Srebrenica, and called for that war to be stopped, for a European perspective for Bosnia and the Western Balkans, and for sanctions against those threatening Bosnia and Herzegovina's integrity.

In that sitting she also spoke on the CDU/CSU motion "Alleinerziehende in der aktuellen hohen Inflation nicht allein lassen" (printed paper 20/1334). She spoke on it again on 13 October 2022, on the committee recommendation in printed papers 20/1334 and 20/2697 (protocol 20/60): a *Kindergrundsicherung* and a 12-euro minimum wage had, she said, been blocked in the grand coalition; raising the single-parent tax allowance to 5,000 euros would mainly help higher earners, the allowance already standing at 4,008 euros; and she pointed to a tax credit under discussion, a 100-euro child bonus and other coalition relief.

On 19 October 2023, on the CDU/CSU motion "Mehr Teilhabe im Sport – Den Erfolg der Special Olympics World Games nutzen" (printed paper 20/8858; protocol 20/131), she cited sport participation of 55 percent among people with disabilities and 8 percent among people with intellectual or multiple disabilities. She said the Sports Committee had already discussed causes with the disabled-sports federation and [Special Olympics](/organizations/special-olympics) Germany, and she listed staff support, the programme "Teilhabe VEREINfacht", reversed cuts and 1.25 million euros for a Safe Sport centre.

On 11 October 2024 she closed debate on the CDU/CSU motion to cut bureaucracy in volunteering and club work (printed paper 20/12982; protocol 20/192). She described Böblingen sports clubs as meeting places across migration history and disability, said 16,000 volunteers had staffed the 2023 World Games, and opposed the motion's measurement plan as adding administration, citing instead the Fourth Bureaucracy Relief Act's move from written form to text form for an association's purpose. At the first reading the same day of the government bill on structures against sexual violence against children and young people (printed paper 20/13183), she said such violence had no place in sport, referred to cases involving the diver Jan Hempel and handball players Amelie Berger and Mia Zschocke, and quoted the study "Sexualisierte Gewalt und sexueller Kindesmissbrauch im Kontext des Sports". She backed a stronger legal basis for the Independent Commissioner for Child Sexual Abuse Issues and a national Safe Sport centre, and said the abuse occurs mostly in families, neighbourhoods and clubs.

## Twenty-first Bundestag

The 21st Bundestag was elected on 23 February 2025 and constituted on 25 March 2025; the new house had 630 members. Jasmina Hostert returned for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) on the Baden-Württemberg state list after standing in constituency 260, Böblingen. The direct mandate there went to Marc Biadacz of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, with 37.3 percent of the first votes; the SPD received 34,198 first votes, 16.8 percent. The SPD parliamentary group lists Böblingen as her constituency and also assigns her the care of Stuttgart I (258) and Stuttgart II (259).

In the biography current on 27 October 2026 the Bundestag lists her as a full member and *Obfrau* of the Committee on Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth, a full member of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union, a deputy member of the Committee on Internal Affairs, and chair of the German–Southeast European Parliamentary Group.

### Spokesperson for education and family affairs

The education and family committee was constituted on 21 May 2025 in a sitting led by Bundestag Vice President [Josephine Ortleb](/people/josephine-ortleb). Its 38 members were 13 from the CDU/CSU, nine from the AfD, seven from the SPD, five from the Greens and four from the Left; [Saskia Esken](/people/saskia-esken) (SPD) was elected chair by secret ballot, and Hostert was one of the SPD members. From that day the SPD group names her spokesperson of its working group on education, family, senior citizens, women and youth, and the Bundestag lists her as the group’s *Obfrau* in the committee.

An *Obfrau* or *Obmann* is not the chair. Each group names one per committee as the leadership’s main contact; the *Obleute* help set the group’s line and mediate when talks stall. Full members have a vote; deputies may attend but vote only for an absent full member of their own group. Standing committees are preparatory decision-making bodies: the plenary refers bills and other items to one lead committee, with others consulted on particular points.

She was also a full member of the Committee on Sport and Volunteering from 21 May to 13 November 2025, and deputy spokesperson of the SPD working group on sport and volunteering from 24 June to 13 November 2025, when she moved to a full seat on the European Union committee.

### European affairs, interior and parliamentary secretary

From 21 May to 12 November 2025 she was a deputy member of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union, and a full member from 13 November 2025, the day the SPD working group on European Union affairs also lists her. The Bundestag biography shows only that full membership.

Since 21 May 2025 she has been a deputy member of the Committee on Internal Affairs, with a matching deputy seat on the SPD interior working group. In committee a deputy’s vote counts only when substituting for an absent full member of the same group.

She also served as a parliamentary secretary (*Schriftführerin*). Secretaries, elected on the groups’ nomination under §3 of the rules of procedure, assist the President in the plenary rather than in committee. Two of them, normally one from the governing side and one from the opposition, sit with the presiding officer as the *Sitzungsvorstand*, taking motions and requests to speak, keeping the speakers’ list, reading documents, checking the minutes and establishing vote results, including by counting ballots. Drucksache 21/215 of 20 May 2025 named her among twelve SPD nominees; the Bundestag elected the slate without debate on 22 May 2025. The SPD group dates the office from 21 May 2025 to 4 May 2026. On 7 May 2026 the 77th sitting elected [Ruppert Stüwe](/people/ruppert-stuwe), on the SPD proposal, as secretary in her place.

### Boards and friendship groups

On 3 June 2025 the SPD group elected an extended executive of 25 members, Hostert among them. Since 7 July 2025 it lists her as chair of its Südosteuropa discussion circle, an internal SPD forum rather than a Bundestag body, and since 15 September 2025 as chair of the cross-party German–Southeast European Parliamentary Group, which the Bundestag biography also records. In the Bundestag’s list of group executives for the 20th term, that group was defined as covering Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Serbia.

These groups are not committees but cross-party associations for dialogue with foreign parliaments and with governments, oppositions and civil society. Each term the Council of Elders fixes their number and structure, chairs are shared with regard to faction strength, and a member may belong to up to three. In June 2025 it set up 47 groups for relations with 180 countries; exchange visits are ordinarily once a term to one country, or twice to a region.

The Federal Agency for Civic Education lists her as an SPD ordinary member of its board of trustees for this term. The board has 22 Bundestag members, allocated by faction strength, and oversees the agency’s work for effectiveness and political balance; the SPD group dates her seat from 25 June 2025. On 18 September 2025 the Bundestag elected the foundation council of the Federal Foundation for Equality (*Bundesstiftung Gleichstellung*). Hostert sits for the SPD, with [Felix Döring](/people/felix-doring) as deputy, under Federal Minister Karin Prien. Her declaration of interests records the function from 18 September 2025; the SPD group page dates the same membership from 25 June 2025.

## Policy positions

### Education, childcare and youth protection

On 2 September 2026 the federal cabinet approved a Startchancen and Quality Development Act under which the federation would give the Länder about €9.25 billion over eight years from 2027 for nationwide standards in early-years care, including development checks by age four and extra staff where many children are disadvantaged; the Bundestag gave it a first reading on 9 October 2026. Jasmina Hostert, education spokesperson of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) group, supported extending the school Startchancen approach, but said language support must not become a stigmatising test and that the draft’s paperwork should be cut.

A legal right passed in 2021 took effect on 1 August 2026 for first-graders—eight hours on weekdays, lessons included, extending to all primary years from 2029/30. Hostert called it time to learn and a day parents could plan, but said it would count only if quality was met everywhere by federation, Länder and municipalities together. Tagesschau reported a shortage the German Trade Union Confederation put at about 166,000 places. Education minister Karin Prien (CDU) called the right a milestone for families who could not buy tutoring, while saying equal quality could not exist everywhere at the start.

On 12 August 2026 the cabinet adopted a first restructuring of child and youth welfare, debated at first reading on 8 October: more ordinary services, a municipal trial of youth welfare as the contact for young people with disabilities, and retention of the individual legal claim. Hostert said that still did not assure protection regardless of origin, situation or disability, and that the SPD wanted more prevention and inclusion and less bureaucracy.

In February 2026 she argued for data-minimising age checks, no social-media use under 14 and limited “youth versions” to 16, with national rules if Europe had not acted by summer. After [European Commission](/organizations/european-commission) findings on TikTok, she said on 30 July that designing platforms for maximum time spent required action, while noting the coalition partner’s own proposals. On 14 October the cabinet instead set a bridge to an EU rule at under 13, with graded limits to 18 and age checks from 2027 via a German EUDI wallet. Prien said young people should be made “weatherproof”, not locked out, and that parents rather than corporate algorithms should bring them up.

In September 2025 Prien told *Welt* that funding left-wing activists was no way to fight right-wing extremism, and that only groups loyal to the free democratic basic order should be funded. Hostert and Felix Döring called that extremely irritating, saying “Demokratie leben!” already chose projects professionally and that its local partnerships protected democracy. The coalition agreement had already promised an independent review of the programme’s effects and of projects’ constitutional loyalty. On 11 October 2024 Hostert backed a bill strengthening institutions that deal with sexual violence against children, and said such violence had no place in sport.

### Equality, inclusion and disability

Directive (EU) 2023/970, on pay transparency, was due in national law by 7 June 2026. Hostert told Deutschlandfunk that the SPD was pressing the CDU-led family ministry but the Union was “not eager”, and rejected firms’ claim that transposition was too bureaucratic; no draft existed, and Germany risked penalties. On 6 August she said the bill was still missing, pointed to a gap of 16 percent—the unadjusted rate Destatis gave for 2025—and said the directive meant equal pay for equal or equivalent work, not the same wage for everyone.

On 16 April 2026 Hostert, [Annika Klose](/people/annika-klose) and [Heike Heubach](/people/heike-heubach) called a cut list for disability support and youth welfare then circulating in the media unacceptable: integration assistance, they said, was how participation happened, and bureaucracy might be reduced but not by saving “on the backs of the weakest”. In that October 2024 sitting she described Böblingen sports clubs as meeting places for people with and without a disability, cited the volunteer effort behind the 2023 Special Olympics World Games in Berlin, and said a further CDU/CSU volunteering plan would add bureaucracy in the name of cutting it.

### Migration and social policy

In March 2022, as people fled the war in Ukraine, Hostert told the *Stuttgarter Nachrichten* that the pictures matched her childhood, when everything changed overnight, and that Ukrainian children would need language courses, school and care. She said politics decides whether refugees are admitted—“Today I help decide”—and named child poverty, a basic child benefit, all-day primary care and affordable housing as priorities. *Der Spiegel* reported on 2 April 2022, thirty years after the siege of Sarajevo began, that children fleeing Ukraine put her in mind of herself.

### Europe and the Western Balkans

In *Vorwärts* on 11 July 2025, thirty years after the killings at Srebrenica, Hostert spoke of powerlessness and of survivors who maintain the Potočari memorial, which she had visited. She said “the Serbian side” still denied a genocide, that in Republika Srpska Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić were treated as heroes, including in schoolbooks, and that moderate forces needed support against nationalism.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has been a candidate for European Union membership since the [European Council](/organizations/european-council)’s decision of 15 December 2022. Hostert said the Federation was ready for that path while Republika Srpska looked more toward Serbia and Russia, but that the Union was still the best prospect, geographically and because Bosnians were bringing skills home. She blamed slow reform on a weak centre and on the Dayton Agreement constitution, which she called outdated because human rights should outweigh membership of a constituent people, and described presidency member [Denis Bećirović](/people/denis-becirovic) as arguing that ethnicity should not decide a person’s chances.

## Sport and civil society

### Disabled and rehabilitation sport

On 16 April 2019 the general assembly of the Württembergischer Rehabilitations- und Behindertensportverband (WBRS), meeting at the Haus des Sports “SpOrt Stuttgart”, elected Jasmina Hostert president with no votes against, together with vice-presidents Diana Schulz (rehabilitation sport), Rainer Wahl (teaching), Heinz Rieker (disability sport) and Gert-Jürgen Engel (finance). On 31 July 2021, with the association styled the Württembergischer Behinderten- und Rehabilitationssportverband, the same hall re-elected Hostert, Wahl, Rieker and Engel unanimously; Ulrike Wortha-Weiß replaced Schulz. Hostert did not stand again. On 22 April 2023 the assembly elected Maren Pilchowski president.

Her Bundestag biography, which the parliament says rests on members’ own information, dates the presidency to 2019–2023 and her place on the human-rights advisory board of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB) from 2022. The DOSB says the board advises it on human-rights due diligence, including the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The presidium presented the board at the 19th members’ assembly, in Baden-Baden on 3 December 2022, and lists Hostert as a member for the Social Democratic Party of Germany. The Bundestag’s register of outside posts records the board seat as unpaid and, with no start date, a seat in the assembly of the Deutsche Schulsportstiftung in Berlin.

### Remembrance of the Bosnian War

On 11 July 2025 the Bundestag held an agreed debate on the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre. President [Julia Klöckner](/people/julia-klockner) recalled that families in the Bosnian town had been separated by force and that more than 8,000 Bosniak boys and men had been murdered.

Hostert spoke for the SPD. The parliamentary account, noting that she had lost an arm as a child in the Bosnian War, records her calling Srebrenica “the first genocide on European soil since the Holocaust”, one that “could have been prevented and should have been prevented”, and her statement of belief in a common Bosnia and Herzegovina and in a European path for it. In a *Vorwärts* interview that day she said she had visited the Srebrenica–Potočari memorial weeks earlier. She described survivors who maintain the site and search mass graves, opposition she attributed to the leadership of Republika Srpska, and the absence of what she called a collective acceptance of responsibility. “The Serbian side”, she said, still denied a genocide; in the entity, [Ratko Mladić](/people/ratko-mladic) and Radovan Karadžić were celebrated as heroes, including in schoolbooks, while many perpetrators remained free.

She called the order fixed by the Dayton Agreement outdated, argued that human rights should outweigh ethnic belonging, and described accession to the European Union as the country’s best outlook, with the Federation readier than Republika Srpska. She also pointed to civil-society support, including [Friedrich Ebert Foundation](/organizations/friedrich-ebert-foundation) offices in Sarajevo and Banja Luka.

### Voluntary offices

The Bundestag separately publishes offices declared under sections 45 onwards of the Members of the Bundestag Act. Hostert’s list gives the foundation council of the Bundesstiftung Gleichstellung in Berlin from 18 September 2025; the supervisory board of the Deutscher Paritätischer Wohlfahrtsverband Baden-Württemberg from 19 November 2025; the foundation council of Stiftung Kinder forschen, unpaid, from 4 November 2025; the board of trustees of Stiftung Lesen, unpaid, from 28 January 2026; and an unpaid vice-presidency of the Südosteuropa-Gesellschaft from 27 February 2026. Stiftung Lesen names her on its board of trustees as the SPD spokesperson for education, family, senior citizens, women and youth.

From 21 November 2025 the register also lists her as deputy president of the German Red Cross district association for Böblingen, based in Sindelfingen. Delegates of the association’s 24 local branches elected her that day in Weissach for a four-year term, with the lawyer and Landtag member Hans Dieter Scheerer as president. The self-reported biography adds membership of ProFamilia Böblingen, the Arbeiterwohlfahrt, Lebenshilfe Böblingen and kulturnetzwerk blaues haus, and a sponsorship (*Patin*) of [SOS Children’s Villages](/organizations/sos-children-s-villages) worldwide.

## Personal life

### Family and residence

Hostert has lived in Böblingen, in Baden-Württemberg, since 2011. A *Vorwärts* profile of 17 November 2021 called the town her home and reported that she lived there with her family, including a daughter then aged ten and a son born a few days earlier. Deutsche Welle had reported on 29 September 2021 that the daughter was born in Böblingen in 2011 and that Hostert was expecting a son that November. On her website as a member of the Bundestag she states that she lives locally with her husband and their two children. The Bundestag lists her constituency office at Stadtgrabenstraße 8, 71032 Böblingen. The Social Democratic Party of Germany parliamentary group’s page gives the same Böblingen office, at that house number and postcode. The November 2021 profile noted a slight Swabian accent in her speech.

After she and her father reached Bonn, they were housed with the retired secondary-school teacher Maria Hostert rather than in a refugee hostel. Hostert told Deutsche Welle that her family returned to Sarajevo, that she stayed, and that Maria Hostert adopted her, which is why she bears that surname; she said Maria died in 2003 and had not lived to see her later success. In her own essay for *Vorwärts* on 27 August 2015 she called Maria Hostert her adoptive mother, a *Gymnasiallehrerin* who had supported her since 1994, had taken on legal custody, and died of kidney disease in 2003. A *Vorwärts* profile of 3 May 2016 reported that Hostert lived with the retired teacher from the time of her treatment in a Bonn hospital until she was 21, and that she was adopted by her, after which the surname was Hostert rather than Pasic. That article used both terms for Maria: foster mother (*Pflegemutter*), described as her main parent in Germany, and adoptive mother (*Adoptivmutter*), the person she means by “my mother.” It also reported that her father had returned to Bosnia and that she had not been close to her biological mother. Radio Sarajevo reported on 26 September 2021 that the adoption took place when she turned 18. A *Stuttgarter Nachrichten* profile of 8 March 2022, without naming Maria Hostert, said Hostert grew up in Bonn with a foster mother.

### Citizenship and name

The Bundestag records her birth on 3 December 1982 in Sarajevo. Profiles give her birth name as Jasmina Pašić. The introduction to the 27 August 2015 *Vorwärts* essay stated that she had been a citizen of Germany for about a year. Radio Sarajevo quoted her as saying that her German passport names her Jasmina Hostert and her passport from Bosnia and Herzegovina names her Jasmina Pašić, and that she holds both citizenships. In a report the next day, the station quoted her on the practical effect of the surname: with a Bosnian surname, she said, she was treated as a foreigner or migrant, whereas a German surname led people to assume she was German.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/jasmina-hostert