# Johannes Schraps

# Johannes Schraps

Johannes Schraps (born 17 August 1983 in Bad Pyrmont) is a German political scientist and a politician of the [Social Democratic Party of Germany](/organizations/social-democratic-party-of-germany) (SPD). He has sat in the Bundestag since the 19th legislative period, which convened on 24 October 2017, and the SPD parliamentary group lists him across the 19th, 20th and 21st terms for constituency 46, Hameln-Pyrmont – Holzminden, in Lower Saxony. The Bundestag biography, compiled from the member’s own information, describes him as evangelical Lutheran, married and the father of one child.

Schraps passed the Abitur in 2003 at the Viktoria-Luisa-Gymnasium and studied political science at Bielefeld University, completing a Bachelor of Arts between 2003 and 2008 that included a one-year interdisciplinary programme called Europa Intensiv. He then took a Master of Arts in political science at the University of Hamburg from 2008 to 2011, with an Erasmus year in 2009–2010 at Linnaeus University in Växjö, Sweden, concentrated on European integration. From 2011 to 2013 he was a parliamentary assistant in the [European Parliament](/organizations/european-parliament) in Brussels, and from 2013 to 2017 a research assistant in the Bundestag office of Heinz-Joachim Barchmann, an SPD member and deputy chair of the Committee on European Union Affairs. He joined the SPD in 1999 and has been on the executive of its Hameln-Pyrmont sub-district since 2015.

In the 21st Bundestag he is a full member of the Finance Committee and, since 25 June 2025, deputy chair of the Committee on European Union Affairs. The committee elected him in a secret ballot with 28 of 31 votes; Anton Hofreiter of Alliance 90/[The Greens](/organizations/the-greens) is the chair. He has sat on the extended executive of the SPD parliamentary group since 3 June 2025, leads the Bundestag delegation to the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference, and has been deputy chair of the German–Ukrainian Parliamentary Group since 15 September 2025. Delegates at the conference’s 31st session, held in Stockholm from 12 to 14 June 2022, elected him president, an office the Bundestag then held for a year. He is a substitute member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe](/organizations/organization-for-security-and-co-operation-in-europe).

At the federal election of 23 February 2025 the Federal Returning Officer recorded Schraps as directly elected in constituency 46 with 47,556 first votes (33.0 percent), ahead of Mareike Lotte Wulf of the [Christian Democratic Union of Germany](/organizations/christian-democratic-union-of-germany) on 28.6 percent. [The Alternative](/organizations/the-alternative) for Germany took 20.9 percent of first votes, turnout was 81.2 percent, and on the party vote the CDU led with 27.0 percent, the SPD 24.6 percent and the AfD 21.2 percent. *[Der Spiegel](/organizations/der-spiegel)* reported Schraps as the winner of the same constituency in 2021, when the official count gave the SPD 56,893 first votes (43.2 percent) against 25.5 percent for the CDU. In 2017 the SPD’s first-vote share there was 39.1 percent (54,130 votes), the CDU’s 33.4 percent, and turnout 74.6 percent.

## Early life and education

### Childhood and schooling

Johannes Schraps was born on 17 August 1983 in Bad Pyrmont, in the district of Hameln-Pyrmont in Lower Saxony. The biography published by the Bundestag, which the parliament states is based on members' own disclosures, lists him as Evangelical Lutheran, married, and the father of one child. He grew up in Groß Berkel, a village of about 3,200 inhabitants in the municipality of Aerzen, in the Weser Uplands. A February 2025 profile in the *Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine* (HNA) described him as having been raised there and, at the time of the article, living with his wife in Hameln.

According to that profile, [Social Democracy](/organizations/social-democracy) was already the family's political setting: his great-grandfather was, after the Second World War, Social Democratic mayor of the then municipality of Groß Berkel and later its *Gemeindedirektor* (municipal director), and both parents were long active as SPD local politicians in the village. In an October 2019 interview with the Hameln magazine *HamelnR*, Schraps said his parents had been very politically active and that his father had for a time been *Ortsbürgermeister* (village mayor) of Groß Berkel; he recalled his father looking into the children's room on local-election evenings to say whether he had been elected.

He took his *Abitur* in 2003 at the Viktoria-Luise-Gymnasium in Hameln. The school, whose own site uses that spelling and gives the address Grütterstraße 10–12, is a municipal *Gymnasium*; the Bundestag biography spells the name Viktoria-Luisa-Gymnasium. The HNA profile says he played football and handball from early youth and was active as a handball player in the third division in Hameln and in Bielefeld. It dates his turn toward party politics to the age of 15, during a school internship in the office of a Social Democratic member of the Landtag of Lower Saxony. He told the paper that a figure from the [National Democratic Party](/organizations/national-democratic-party) of Germany in Hameln had wanted to open a far-right training centre, that he had suggested a demonstration against it, and that a large demonstration with several party youth organisations then took place. He afterwards joined the SPD and local work of the Young Socialists in the SPD; the HNA profile puts party entry at 16, while the Bundestag biography dates it to 1999.

### University studies

From 2003 to 2008 Schraps studied political science at Bielefeld University, completing a Bachelor of Arts, together with the university's one-year interdisciplinary qualification programme "Europa Intensiv". Founded in 1999, the programme is a two-semester add-on coordinated by the Faculty of Law with the faculties of economics, history, philosophy and theology, health sciences, and sociology. It treats the European Union and European integration across those disciplines, with language and intercultural training and a self-chosen internship of several weeks, in most cases in Brussels. In the 2019 interview he said that during the Bielefeld years he also took courses in Swedish and Polish.

From 2008 to 2011 he took a Master of Arts in political science at the University of Hamburg. In 2009–2010 he spent an Erasmus Programme year at the university in Växjö, Sweden, which the Bundestag biography records as Linné-Universität Växjö, with European integration as the focus. A directive of the [Swedish government](/organizations/swedish-government) dated 9 December 2008 had charged an organisational committee with preparing Linnaeus University (*Linnéuniversitetet*), combining Växjö University and Kalmar University College, so that the new university could begin work on 1 January 2010, subject to the Riksdag's decision on the 2009 budget bill.

## Political apprenticeship

### SPD membership and local party office

Schraps has dated his first practical contact with party politics to the age of 15, during a school placement in the office of a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the Landtag of Lower Saxony. In a February 2025 interview with the *Hessische/Niedersächsische Allgemeine* he said that a member of the National Democratic Party of Germany was then seeking to open a far-right training centre in Hamelin, and that he, as an intern, suggested a demonstration, which was held with youth organisations of several parties. He joined the SPD in 1999. The same newspaper profile states that he was 16 and that he then took part in local work of the Young Socialists in the SPD. It also describes social democracy as a family tradition in Groß Berkel, a village in the municipality of Aerzen: his great-grandfather, the article reports, was the SPD mayor of Groß Berkel after the war and later municipal director, and both of his parents were long active as SPD local politicians there.

The Bundestag biography, which the parliament notes is based on members’ own information, records his membership of the executive of the SPD sub-district (*Unterbezirk*) of Hameln-Pyrmont from 2015. At the sub-district party congress on 25 April 2015 he was elected, listed under Aerzen, as one of 14 assessors (*Beisitzer*), placing second with 146 votes, and was also elected a delegate to regional party congresses (*Bezirksparteitage*), in fifth place with 72 votes. In the 2025 interview he placed a first election to that executive in 2014, a year before the date in the Bundestag biography. The 2015 minutes also record that his father, Burkhard Schraps of Aerzen, was elected by acclamation as one of three party auditors.

He kept the local office after entering the Bundestag. A sub-district congress at the end of November 2021 confirmed him as a deputy chair, alongside chair Barbara Fahncke. A congress in Aerzen, reported on 4 May 2023, confirmed him again as one of the deputy chairs, with Sarah Schneider and Marcus Biewener.

### European Parliament and Bundestag staff

From 2011 to 2013 Schraps worked as a parliamentary assistant in the European Parliament in Brussels. The Bundestag biography states the role and the years but does not name the member he assisted. In the 2025 interview he said that the post was with an Austrian member of the Parliament; neither that interview nor the Bundestag biography names the member.

From 2013 to 2017 he was a scientific staff member (*wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter*) in the Bundestag office of Heinz-Joachim Barchmann, usually called Achim Barchmann. The parliament’s list of occupations before membership in the Bundestag records him as Barchmann’s scientific staff member in Berlin. Barchmann, of the SPD, had sat in the Bundestag since 2009. In the 18th electoral term he held his seat through the Lower Saxony state list for the constituency of Helmstedt–Wolfsburg. On the morning of 29 January 2014 the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union chose him as deputy to its chair, Günther Krichbaum of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany. Before entering parliament Barchmann had been a secretary of the German Trade Union Confederation and, from 2007, chair of its SüdOstNiedersachsen region, working from Wolfsburg. Schraps has said that his own responsibility in the office was European policy.

While he was still on Barchmann’s staff, he has said, Gabriele Lösekrug-Möller, the long-serving SPD member of the Bundestag from Hamelin, asked him in 2015 whether he would consider succeeding her as the direct candidate for the constituency in 2017. He said that he was then 32 and that he agreed.

## Bundestag elections

### Constituency Hameln-Pyrmont – Holzminden

Johannes Schraps has stood for the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in Lower Saxony constituency 46, Hameln-Pyrmont – Holzminden, and has entered the Bundestag by winning that seat. The Federal Returning Officer used the same description for the 2017, 2021 and 2025 elections: the districts of Hameln-Pyrmont and Holzminden in full and, from the district of Northeim, the town of Uslar, the municipality of Bodenfelde and the unincorporated area of Solling. The rest of Northeim district is in constituency 52.

For 2025 the constituency covered 1,802.4 square kilometres and 42 municipalities. On 31 December 2023 it had about 233,100 inhabitants (129.3 per square kilometre), and 87.8 percent of the area was classified as vegetation or water. The 2021 file already recorded the same area and number of municipalities, with about 236,200 inhabitants at the end of 2019.

The SPD held the direct mandate before Schraps, on a narrow margin. At the 2013 federal election Gabriele Lösekrug-Möller, a member of the Bundestag since 2001 and then parliamentary state secretary in the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, took 42.33 percent of the first votes, ahead of Michael Vietz of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) on 39.57 percent. She did not stand in 2017. The seat was not an unchallenged SPD stronghold afterwards: the CDU finished just ahead on the second vote in 2017, and in 2025 it led the second vote again while the AfD passed one fifth of both votes.

### 2017 election

On 21 January 2017 SPD delegates in Bodenwerder-Buchhagen nominated Schraps, a political scientist from Groß Berkel in the municipality of Aerzen. Of 184 votes cast, 115 went to Schraps, 46 to Steffen Knippertz of Hamelin and 22 to Christoph Schnurpfeil of Bodenwerder, with one ballot invalid.

Seven candidates were admitted for the [2017 German federal election](/facts/2017-german-federal-election) on 24 September. Schraps won with 54,130 first votes (39.1 percent), 3.2 points below the SPD’s 2013 share and 7,949 votes ahead of Vietz. Vietz, a CDU member of the Bundestag since 2013, received 46,181 votes (33.4 percent), down 6.2 points. Armin Paul Hampel of the Alternative for Germany (AfD) took 13,143 (9.5 percent), Jutta Krellmann of [Die Linke](/organizations/die-linke) 8,220 (5.9 percent), Klaus-Peter Wennemann of the Free Democratic Party 8,034 (5.8 percent) and Ute Michel of Alliance 90/The Greens 7,511 (5.4 percent). Turnout was 74.6 percent: 139,780 of 187,377 eligible voters.

On the second vote the CDU led by 234 votes, 44,424 (32.0 percent) to 44,190 for the SPD (31.9 percent). The AfD received 10.1 percent, the FDP 9.0 percent, the Greens 7.2 percent and the Left 6.6 percent. Radio aktiv reported that Vietz’s CDU state-list place did not return him to parliament, while Krellmann and Hampel took seats.

### 2021 and 2025 elections

Schraps was the only nominee at the SPD conference in Buchhagen on 20 March 2021. Of 68 delegates voting, 66 supported him, one voted against and one abstained.

At the [2021 German federal election](/facts/2021-german-federal-election) on 26 September he widened the lead. The final count gave him 56,893 first votes (43.2 percent), up 4.2 points and 23,318 ahead of Mareike Lotte Wulf (CDU), on 33,575 (25.5 percent, down 7.8 points). [Helge Limburg](/people/helge-limburg) (Greens) had 13,259 (10.1 percent), Delia Klages (AfD) 11,208 (8.5 percent), Moritz Mönkemeyer (FDP) 9,102 (6.9 percent) and Stephan Marquardt (Left) 3,676 (2.8 percent). Turnout was 72.0 percent, 132,893 of 184,471 eligible voters. The SPD also led the second vote, with 48,438 (36.8 percent), ahead of the CDU on 22.6 percent, the Greens on 13.1 percent, the FDP on 10.4 percent and the AfD on 8.8 percent. That SPD share was 11.1 points above the party’s national 25.7 percent.

In August 2024 the *Hessisch/Niedersächsische Allgemeine* reported that the SPD boards in Hameln-Pyrmont, Holzminden and Northeim had backed another Schraps candidacy, with the nominating conference set for November. At the 2025 German federal election on 23 February the Federal Returning Officer recorded him as elected in the constituency with 47,556 first votes (33.0 percent), 10.3 points below 2021. Wulf was second on 41,181 (28.6 percent, up 3.0 points), a margin of 6,375 votes. Cornelius Volker (AfD) was third with 30,078 (20.9 percent, up 12.3 points). Limburg received 10,314 (7.2 percent), Felix Bergmann (Left) 7,757 (5.4 percent), Christian Ahlswede (FDP) 4,628 (3.2 percent) and Jan Warnecke of the [Free Voters](/organizations/free-voters) 2,623 (1.8 percent). Turnout rose to 81.2 percent, 145,350 of 179,071 eligible voters.

The second vote put the CDU first, on 39,012 (27.0 percent). The SPD fell to 35,552 (24.6 percent, down 12.2 points) and the AfD reached 30,612 (21.2 percent). The Greens took 9.4 percent, the Left 6.7 percent and the FDP 3.9 percent. The Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance (BSW), with no constituency candidate, received 5,437 second votes (3.8 percent).

## Parliamentary offices

### Committees across three terms

Schraps’s standing committee seats have centred on European affairs and finance. In the 19th Bundestag, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) parliamentary group records him as a full member of the Committee on European Union Affairs from 29 January 2018 and of the Finance Committee from 15 October 2019, and as a substitute member of the Foreign Affairs Committee from 29 January 2018 and of the Budget Committee from 15 October 2019. The Bundestag biography lists the same four seats for that term.

In the 20th Bundestag he was a full member of the EU Affairs Committee and the Finance Committee, and a substitute on the Foreign Affairs Committee, each from 13 December 2021. The biography records those three assignments and does not list a Budget Committee seat for that term.

In the 21st Bundestag the group lists him as a full member of the EU Affairs Committee and of the Finance Committee from 21 May 2025. On 24 June 2025 it nominated him for deputy chair of the EU Affairs Committee. The committee elected him the next day, 25 June 2025, by secret ballot: he received 28 of the 31 votes cast, with one invalid ballot and two abstentions. The SPD group held the right to propose that deputy chair in the 21st term. The chair is Anton Hofreiter of Alliance 90/The Greens, elected at the committee’s constitutive meeting on 21 May 2025; the Bundestag noted that he had already chaired the committee in the previous term. The current membership list records Schraps as deputy chair and full member of the EU committee and as a full member of the Finance Committee, and it does not record a [Foreign Affairs](/organizations/foreign-affairs) substitute seat.

On 8 December 2025, n-tv reported that Hofreiter had announced a short reduction in his workload after the birth of a child and had said that Schraps, as deputy chair, would take interim charge of the committee during his absence.

### SPD parliamentary group

Inside the SPD group, Schraps was deputy spokesperson of the working group on EU affairs from 16 December 2021. The group’s profile dates his seat on the extended executive (*erweiterter Fraktionsvorstand*) from 11 January 2022, and notices of 13 January 2022 and 26 September 2023 each named him among 25 members elected to that body.

On 3 June 2025 the group again chose 25 members of the extended executive, Schraps among them, and its profile dates that membership from the same day. For the 21st term it also lists him as a member of the working groups on EU affairs and on finance from 21 May 2025, and as chair of the Eastern Europe discussion circle (*Gesprächskreis Osteuropa*) from 7 July 2025.

### Other Bundestag bodies

The SPD group lists him as a substitute member of the board of trustees of the Federal Agency for Civic Education from 26 June 2018, from 26 April 2022 and from 25 June 2025. The Bundestag biography records that substitute trusteeship for the 19th and 20th terms.

The biography also lists him as head of the German delegation to the Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference in the 19th and 20th terms and again in the 21st. He was a member of the German delegation to the Interparliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance in the EU from 15 March 2022, and the group and the Bundestag record a full membership again from 7 July 2025. From that date he is a substitute member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The group lists him as deputy chair of the German–Ukrainian Parliamentary Group from 21 March 2022 and, in the 21st term, from 15 September 2025; the Bundestag list records the same deputy chairmanship.

On the administrative council of the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority, the group lists him as a substitute member from 15 March 2022 and as a member from 16 December 2025. BaFin’s council roll, dated April 2026, includes him among the members drawn from the Bundestag.

## European Union affairs

### Committee on European Union Affairs

Article 45 of the Basic Law requires the Bundestag to appoint a Committee on European Union Affairs and allows the House to authorise it to exercise the Bundestag’s rights toward the federal government under Article 23 and the treaties of the European Union. The Bundestag describes the 34-member committee as its central forum on integration, institutions, the multiannual financial framework and enlargement, able in defined cases to act in place of the plenary. For the 21st electoral term it was constituted on 21 May 2025 under Anton Hofreiter of Alliance 90/The Greens; the SPD holds seven seats, including Schraps.

On 25 June 2025 the committee elected him deputy chair by secret ballot, 28 of 31 votes, with one invalid ballot and two abstentions. The SPD group, which held the right of proposal, had designated him the day before. A Weserbergland station quoted him welcoming colleagues’ confidence and saying that a strong EU was decisive for peace, security and prosperity, and that he wanted Europe to hold together and act jointly. The Bundestag’s register of outside posts lists him as an unpaid board member of the Hameln-Pyrmont district association of the Europa-Union Deutschland, which also lists him among its Bundestag parliamentarians.

In the debate of 17 December 2025, before the [European Council](/organizations/european-council), he called EU enlargement “not an end in itself, but an investment in peace, in security and in stability”: Ukraine had a European perspective, other candidates must not drop from view, and “whoever implements reforms and strengthens the rule of law must also be able to move forward toward accession”. On 18 September 2020, for the governing groups’ motion during the German Council presidency, he welcomed a conditionality rule for the EU budget and the recovery instrument, preferred dialogue among member states to punishment, and noted that Article 7 needs unanimity, whereas parliamentarians would rather have seen sanctions apply unless a qualified majority blocked them.

### Economic governance and social Europe

Schraps has served on the German delegation to the Interparliamentary Conference on Stability, Economic Coordination and Governance in the EU, the forum in Article 13 of the 2 March 2012 Treaty on Stability, Coordination and Governance, the [European Fiscal Compact](/facts/european-fiscal-compact). It meets in spring in Brussels during the European Parliamentary Week and in autumn under the Council presidency to exchange information and support democratic accountability in economic governance; it adopts no binding acts.

He led the Bundestag delegation on 12–13 February 2024. The delegation report records him citing a high investment need, the United States’ [Inflation Reduction Act](/facts/inflation-reduction-act) and high interest rates as burdens on transformation spending; he welcomed the reformed fiscal rules and asked whether a fiscal capacity continuing Next Generation EU could lift European investment. In a Bundestag interview on that session he called the euro a basis of the single market and said the crises of 2008 and 2010 had exposed gaps in the economic and monetary union: a stronger European Central Bank, tighter coordination, a fiscal union, completion of banking union, a capital markets union and adjustment to the energy transition. Crisis support and debt reduction, he argued, had to proceed together: safety nets of €540 billion and Next Generation EU, which he described as a temporary €750 billion instrument, had limited the slump but raised debt, so recovery money should fund green and digital investment and [social cohesion](/drivers/social-cohesion) while the debt ratio fell. He said the EU should invest more in social justice and social rights, taking forward the European Pillar of Social Rights and related funds with national policy.

At the 25th session, on 29–30 September 2025 in Billund, under delegation leader Inge Gräßle, the report has him saying the reformed rules could meet geopolitical and economic challenges if applied intelligently, that their medium-term horizon left earlier austerity behind, and that fiscal policy should serve climate neutrality, social cohesion and security. He called for a “golden rule” separating consumption from future-oriented spending.

An SPD Lower Saxony profile has Schraps arguing that economic and monetary union should be matched by a social union of equal rank, backed by a “social progress clause” so that every EU measure is checked for its social effects. The demand predates his time in the Bundestag. After the Viking and Laval judgments of the [Court of Justice of the European Union](/organizations/justice-cjeu) in December 2007, the [European Trade Union Confederation](/organizations/european-trade-union-confederation) in March 2008 proposed a protocol giving social and workers’ rights at least equal standing with the freedom to provide services and the internal market, and priority in a conflict. The SPD’s European election programme of 28 January 2024 likewise treats a European social union as essential and supports such a protocol, guided by the Pillar and the 2021 Porto targets.

## Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference

### Delegation leadership

The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Conference (BSPC; German: Ostseeparlamentarierkonferenz), established in 1991, brings together parliamentarians from national and regional legislatures around the Baltic Sea to debate shared problems and adopt resolutions addressed to governments. Members include the national parliaments of the Baltic Sea states and regional parliaments—on the German side the Bundestag and those of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Schleswig-Holstein, Hamburg and Bremen—plus the [Baltic Assembly](/organizations/baltic-assembly), the [Nordic Council](/organizations/nordic-council) and the European Parliament. A Standing Committee works between the annual conferences.

Johannes Schraps of the Social Democratic Party of Germany has headed the Bundestag delegation since the start of the 19th legislative period. Before the 27th conference in Mariehamn on 26–28 August 2018, he described the BSPC as a forum for a cleaner Baltic Sea, maritime security, and economic, energy and social policy. He was later vice-president under the Swedish presidency of Pyry Niemi. On 25 February 2022, the day after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Niemi and Schraps issued a joint statement condemning the attack. On 12 March 2022 the heads of delegations from the non-Russian members suspended the Russian parliaments from BSPC meetings, work and projects until cooperation based on international law could resume.

He remained delegation leader after his presidency. At the 33rd conference in Helsingør, Denmark, on 25–27 August 2024, the Bundestag described him as head of the delegation and deputy chair of the BSPC presidium. He led it again at the 34th conference in Mariehamn, on the Åland Islands, on 24–26 August 2025, whose announced agenda included marine policy, cyber and hybrid attacks, and cooperation with the European Union and NATO; the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein was due to take the next presidency.

### Presidency 2022–2023

At the 31st conference, in the Riksdag in Stockholm on 12–14 June 2022, delegates elected Schraps president, and the Bundestag took the rotating presidency from Sweden for the first time in 15 years. He held it until the 32nd conference, on 27–29 August 2023, which met in the Bundestag plenary chamber in Berlin under the theme of strengthening the resilience of the democratic Baltic Sea region.

More than 160 participants from 20 parliaments and parliamentary organisations attended in Stockholm. The conference reaffirmed the suspension of the Russian parliaments, noted Russia’s subsequent withdrawal, and adopted amended statutes and rules of procedure; it defined the response to the invasion as strong democracies, protection of human rights and sustainable development. Schraps said the presidency would meet pandemic recovery, climate change and the threat to democratic values with cooperation, partnership and reliability. His stated priorities were continuity with Sweden’s work on [democratic resilience](/drivers/democratic-resilience), especially against disinformation; another youth forum; and maritime resilience, above all dumped munitions, alongside Germany’s presidency of the [Council of the Baltic Sea States](/organizations/council-of-the-baltic-sea-states), which he said would begin in July 2022.

In Berlin, Bundestag president [Bärbel Bas](/people/barbel-bas) thanked Schraps for guiding the BSPC through that period. He later described the roughly 14-month presidency as centred on the resilience of democratic institutions, including digital threats and energy security; on munitions in the North Sea and Baltic Sea; and on climate and biodiversity, after a three-year working group presented its final report and its recommendations entered the resolution. The Baltic Sea Parliamentary Youth Forum met beside the conference; he said its 48 participants debated democratic resilience and put their conclusions to the parliamentarians. Delegates unanimously adopted a resolution on “Boosting Democratic, Digital and Maritime Resilience Based on Reliable Neighbourliness and Close Cooperation” and established a 2023–2025 working group on energy security, self-sustainability, resilience and connectivity. Schraps chaired the closing session with the incoming president and passed the BSPC’s baton to Henrik Møller; the presidency moved from the Bundestag to the Danish Folketing.

### Dumped munitions and regional security

At the 28th conference in Oslo on 25–27 August 2019, Schraps said the German federal and Land delegations had jointly asked the BSPC to take up conventional and chemical munitions on the seabed from the two world wars. He cited estimates of about 300,000 tonnes of conventional munitions and at least 5,000 tonnes of chemical munitions in German waters, and said there was no systematic inventory and no expert consensus on whether rapid salvage was safer than leaving the material in place. The resolution of 27 August 2019, referring to work in HELCOM, called on governments, the Council of the Baltic Sea States and the European Union for a cross-border strategy, and asked the Council to explore financing for monitoring, securing, salvage or destruction, with an expert commission to assess the risks annually. He said other delegations backed the initiative and that the BSPC would follow it through a rapporteur.

Dumped munitions remained a stated priority of the Bundestag presidency. Schraps said he worked with Anna Kassautzki, the BSPC rapporteur on the subject, and linked the repeated discussion to a clause in the governing parties’ coalition agreement earmarking €100 million for recovery. In Berlin he told delegates that removal had to begin promptly and referred to work on new technologies.

At Helsingør in 2024 the agenda had widened to security after the invasion. Schraps said delegates discussed military and civilian risks, including disinformation and attacks on submarine cables and energy systems, closer defence cooperation within NATO, and surveillance of maritime infrastructure. On Kassautzki’s interim report, he said mapping had advanced but safe recovery was still slow and costly, and that parliamentarians had urged national and EU coordination, further Horizon Europe funding, and less damaging technology. The resolution, as he summarised it, restated support for Ukraine, condemned the invasion, and connected democratic resilience with defence investment, protection against hybrid threats, and energy and digital links among the remaining democratic Baltic Sea states.

## Eastern Europe and multilateral forums

### Ukraine and Moldova

In the 20th Bundestag, the board list of the parliamentary friendship groups named [Robin Wagener](/people/robin-wagener) of Alliance 90/The Greens as chair of the German–Ukrainian Parliamentary Group and Johannes Schraps of the Social Democratic Party of Germany as a deputy chair. Wagener said in a June 2022 Bundestag interview that his group had elected him chair on 27 February 2022 and that the Ukrainian group was the first constituted in that term, for contact with the [Verkhovna Rada](/organizations/verkhovna-rada). The SPD parliamentary group lists Schraps as deputy chair in the 21st Bundestag from 15 September 2025. A notice of a visit to Lviv and Kyiv from 3 to 7 February 2026 named Wagener as head of the delegation; Schraps was not listed.

On 13 December 2023, before that week’s European Council, Schraps said he hoped leaders would open accession talks with Ukraine and Moldova and approve €50 billion in aid to Ukraine. He called Russia’s attack a brutal war contrary to international law and said the law on Bundestag cooperation in European Union affairs required parliamentary agreement before the talks were opened. On 18 December 2025 he called that week’s Berlin Ukraine summit a political signal that the European Council should follow with decisions. Citing the [European Commission](/organizations/european-commission) and the International Monetary Fund, he put Ukraine’s need for 2026 and 2027 at about €137 billion for wages, pensions and infrastructure rather than reconstruction or arms, urged use of frozen Russian assets, and said [European solidarity](/organizations/european-solidarity) had to be more than a promise.

The Bundestag lists him as honorary chair of the Deutsch-Moldauisches Forum e.V. in Berlin. The association, which says it was founded in March 2009, seeks deeper mutual knowledge of Moldova and Germany in politics, the economy, society and culture, and joint projects with a sister organisation in Moldova. In a *Rotary Magazin* interview of 1 October 2022 he said he had been elected chair that April, succeeding Fritz Felgentreu. Of a June 2022 visit, his first as chair and a trip as his group’s rapporteur on Moldova, he said about one million people had entered from Ukraine and about 380,000 remained—more than a tenth of a population he put under three million—and that society had offered help rather than resentment. He treated EU candidate status as the result of freer trade and the association agreement, not as membership, and said the Transnistria conflict had to be settled before accession. He compared that with what he called the 2004 mistake of admitting a divided Cyprus, said people in Transnistria rather than Moscow should decide, and linked a settlement to whether Russia gained what he called a land bridge to the region.

### OSCE Parliamentary Assembly

The Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe is the parliamentary institution of the OSCE. The Bundestag lists 57 participating states, 323 delegate seats, German membership since 1992 and a delegation of 13 members. It accompanies the OSCE process, works on preventing and settling conflicts and on democratic institutions, adopts recommendations at an annual session, meets each February in Vienna and holds a rotating autumn meeting. Observation of presidential and parliamentary elections has been central since 1993, usually with up to 100 parliamentarians and, under a 1997 agreement, with the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights. From 7 July 2025 he is a substitute member of the German delegation.

### Remembrance and the Willy Brandt foundation

Schraps has been on the advisory board of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity since April 2019; its secretariat is in Warsaw. On 2 February 2005 the culture ministers of Germany, Hungary, Slovakia and Poland signed the founding declaration, to analyse, document and spread the history of wars, totalitarian dictatorships and civilian suffering in the twentieth century. The network says it does so through exhibitions, publications, workshops and conferences. Its advisory board comments on medium- and long-term direction and represents the network.

The Norwegian–German Willy Brandt Foundation was founded in 2000 by [Thorvald Stoltenberg](/people/thorvald-stoltenberg) and [Egon Bahr](/people/egon-bahr) to deepen ties between Norway and Germany in the spirit of [Willy Brandt](/people/willy-brandt). It funds exchanges, holds events and awards an annual Willy Brandt Prize, and its statutes call it party-politically independent. The foundation says the board is elected every four years and that the board chosen on 21 March 2024 is chaired by Sverre Myrli and includes Schraps. The Bundestag disclosure records him as unpaid co-chair of that board, and lists the Moldovan forum chairmanship and the ENRS seat as honorary. Abgeordnetenwatch attaches no income to those entries.

## Finance, voting record and transparency

### Finance Committee

Johannes Schraps of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) has been a full member of the Finance Committee of the Bundestag in the 19th electoral term from 2017 and again in the 20th and 21st terms. Apart from the federal budget, the committee's field matches the Federal [Ministry of Finance](/organizations/ministry-of-finance). In the 21st term its 42 members consider bills, motions, government reports and European Union papers referred by the plenary, and it is normally in the lead on bank, securities and insurance regulation, customs and tax law.

In that term he was a rapporteur, with Rainer Groß of the Alternative for Germany, for the report of 28 January 2026 on the bill implementing Directive (EU) 2024/1619 and easing red tape for credit institutions, the Bankenrichtlinienumsetzungs- und Bürokratieentlastungsgesetz (printed paper 21/3897). The committee recommended amendments that day, including partnerships remaining a legal form for banks, lighter environmental, social and governance reporting for promotional banks, and strategy reviews only every two years for small, non-complex institutions. On 29 January 2026 the Bundestag passed it after a half-hour debate in which Schraps spoke for the SPD. The CDU/CSU, the SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens voted yes; the AfD and Die Linke voted no.

### Selected votes and the January 2025 absence

On 29 January 2025, in the 209th sitting, the Bundestag voted by name on a CDU/CSU resolution on the chancellor's government statement (printed paper 20/14698), a non-binding five-point plan on migration. The published final result was 348 in favour, 344 against, 10 abstentions and 31 not voting, a margin of four. Schraps is listed as not voting. On abgeordnetenwatch.de he wrote that his group had excused him because he was in the constituency with his wife, late in pregnancy with their first child, and that he would have voted against the Union resolutions. He also cast no vote that day on the CDU/CSU text on 27 internal-security measures (printed paper 20/14699), which the published final count rejected, 190 to 508, with three abstentions. On 31 January he voted against the separate CDU/CSU Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz; it failed, 349 to 338, with five abstentions.

The same record shows him voting on 18 October 2024 for the coalition bill on internal security and asylum in the "security package", and on 17 October 2024 for the Hospital Care Improvement Act, and against motions of 13 June and 17 October 2024 to repeal the Supply Chain Act. He voted for Bundeswehr mandates, including Iraq on 17 October 2024, the June 2024 extensions of KFOR, EUFOR Althea and UNIFIL, and later UNMISS and EUNAVFOR Aspides extensions.

### Disclosure of income and outside roles

Every member's taxable monthly allowance has been 11,833.47 euro since 1 July 2025; the Bundestag waived the 2026 index rise. The tax-free expense allowance, adjusted each 1 January, was 5,467.27 euro a month in the July 2026 notice, for costs such as a constituency office and a second home in Berlin.

His published register of disclosable interests lists no paid sideline and no income band for outside work. It records a pre-mandate post as research assistant to SPD member Heinz-Joachim Barchmann; a seat, with no pay figure, on the district council of Hameln-Pyrmont; and honorary roles as chair of the German–Moldovan Forum, board member of the Europa-Union branch in Hameln-Pyrmont, advisory-board member of the European Network Remembrance and Solidarity in Warsaw, trustee from 17 September 2026 of the Institute for European Politics, and co-chair of the Norwegian–German Willy Brandt Foundation in Oslo.

Abgeordnetenwatch.de lists him under its transparency pledge: banning corporate donations to parties, an independent check on members' disclosures and the lobby register, a stricter lobby register, and publication of his public funds and lobby contacts. In the note with that pledge he said a donation ban could be sidestepped by gifts from individuals and that a yearly cap per donor would be better; that he did not then doubt oversight by the Bundestag administration; that government–lobbyist contacts should be logged; and that his website already showed the public money available to him and his meetings with interest representatives.

## Constituency and local government

Schraps holds the directly elected Bundestag seat for constituency 46, Hameln-Pyrmont – Holzminden, in Lower Saxony. The Bundestag lists constituency offices at Heiliggeiststraße 2 in Hamelin and Halbmondstraße 20 in Holzminden. That seat covers two rural counties. His council mandate is only in Hameln-Pyrmont, where the Bundestag’s register of members’ functions also names him as a Kreistag member.

### District council of Hameln-Pyrmont

At the Kreistag election of 12 September 2021 he stood for the Social Democratic Party of Germany in Wahlbereich 2, Aerzen/Emmerthal. The official final result records 3,626 personal votes for him, 51.93 percent of the SPD’s candidate votes in that area, and lists the seat as direct. The SPD’s combined share of all valid votes there was 36.72 percent. “Direkt” here means a personal-vote seat inside the party’s allocation, not a single-member constituency. The council has 50 seats.

On 13 September 2026 he was returned again for Aerzen/Emmerthal, with 2,068 personal votes (27.14 percent of the SPD candidate vote there). The SPD’s share of all valid votes in the area was 34.34 percent, turnout was 69.43 percent, and the result again lists the mandate as direct.

### Hospitals, infrastructure and regional debate

The sharpest dispute in the Bundestag constituency, rather than on the Hameln-Pyrmont council, was the insolvency of Agaplesion Evangelisches Krankenhaus Holzminden, the only hospital in Landkreis Holzminden. On 18 August 2023 Agaplesion filed at the Amtsgericht Holzminden, said more than 400 employees were affected, and included the associated medical-care centres. It blamed inflation-driven costs and said the hospital-policy framework left it unable to continue.

On 25 September 2023 Schraps told Abgeordnetenwatch that the insolvency was a heavy blow after years of strain. He wrote that Lower Saxony had provided 23 million euros, while about 15 million euros of investment, including the operating and functional departments, had come from the hospital’s own funds, and that fewer patients since the pandemic and higher staff, material and energy costs had deepened the crisis. He said he had contacted state health minister Andreas Philippi and federal minister Karl Lauterbach, backed the hospital reform as a longer-term step, and asked for interim help, including a preliminary law or energy-cost grants.

On 13 October 2023 a citizens’ initiative handed him and CDU member Mareike Lotte Wulf about 19,500 signatures collected in under three weeks. Helge Limburg of Alliance 90/The Greens was absent; the folders were accepted in his name as well. The *Täglicher Anzeiger* reported that the initiative had wanted to give the signatures to Philippi, who, it said, had refused them as outside his remit. Schraps called the collection a signal of how the county stood behind its hospital, said the three members would take it to Berlin and Hanover, and argued that Lauterbach’s reform had not caused the insolvency. Weser-Ith-News quoted him as saying the case had come before the law was ready.

A rescue discussed by town and county — about 12 million euros, and a cut from roughly 180 beds to 40 — did not go ahead. On 23 November 2023 *Neues Deutschland* reported that insolvency administrator Franz Ludwig Danko had stopped new inpatient admissions after about 160 resignations, including key posts. The town council had agreed a 2.2 million euro guarantee so outpatient centres could stay in the building.

Separate from the hospital, Hameln SPD members argued in 2025 over the CDU/CSU–SPD coalition agreement. On 26 April about 50 people attended an SPD Hameln-Nord meeting on the text at the Gemeindezentrum Hohes Feld. Schraps called the exchange factual and said health and social policy had dominated; the membership-ballot result was due on 30 April. The *Dewezet* reported that he urged approval despite criticism, worry and doubt among members. In July 2022 he told radio aktiv that the 9-Euro-Ticket should continue in revised form, calling full buses and trains in the Weser Uplands evidence that people would use public transport if they could afford it.

## Dated facts

_No published facts on this page yet._

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/johannes-schraps