Martina Englhardt-Kopf

Martina Englhardt-Kopf (born 8 June 1981 in Schwandorf) is a German politician of the Christian Social Union in Bavaria and a member of the Bundestag. She has sat since 26 October 2021 for the Schwandorf constituency in eastern Bavaria, holding a direct mandate in the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. On 6 May 2025, after Alois Rainer took office as Federal Minister of Agriculture, Food and Homeland in the cabinet of Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Rainer swore her in as one of the ministry’s two parliamentary state secretaries, together with Silvia Breher, and handed her the certificate of appointment. The Bundestag lists her function as Parliamentary State Secretary for Agriculture, Food and Homeland.

She completed a commercial apprenticeship with the Bavarian Red Cross in Schwandorf, then studied business education (Wirtschaftspädagogik), with English as a second subject, at the University of Erlangen–Nuremberg, including a year at the University of Hull that led to a Bachelor of Arts (Business) with Honours. She qualified as a Diplom-Handelslehrerin, a degree credited as the first state examination for teaching, and passed the second state examination in 2009 after a traineeship at vocational schools in Straubing and Weiden. From 2009 to 2014 she taught economics and English as a Studienrätin at the Europa-Berufsschule in Weiden in the Upper Palatinate; from 2014 until October 2021 she was seconded to the Government of the Upper Palatinate as coordinator for vocational integration, with the rank of Studiendirektorin, the grade the Bundestag still records for her as retired (a. D.). From October 2018 until May 2025 she also ran her parents’ farm in Schwandorf as a part-time holding.

In Schwandorf she has been a city councillor since May 2008, third deputy mayor from May 2014 to April 2020 and second deputy mayor from May 2020 to March 2022. She has been a councillor of Schwandorf district since 2015 and chaired the CSU group on that council from 2019 until 31 May 2025. Inside the party she was CSU local chair in Schwandorf from 2013 to March 2023, has been deputy chair of the Schwandorf district association since 2013 and deputy chair of the Upper Palatinate CSU since 2021, and has sat on the CSU executive (Parteivorstand) since October 2023.

At the 2021 federal election, when the seat was numbered constituency 234, she won 35.1 percent of the first votes (60,924), ahead of Marianne Schieder of the Social Democratic Party of Germany on 22.8 percent; turnout was 78.7 percent. At the federal election of 23 February 2025 she defended the renumbered constituency 233 with 42.2 percent of the first votes (77,717), against 27.0 percent (49,695) for Reinhard Wilhelm Mixl of the Alternative for Germany; turnout rose to 83.7 percent. She is a Roman Catholic, is married and has two children.

Early life and education

Childhood and schooling

Martina Englhardt-Kopf was born on 8 June 1981 in Schwandorf, in Bavaria’s Upper Palatinate, and is Roman Catholic. From 1993 to 1997 she attended the Mädchenrealschule der Dominikanerinnen there, the girls’ intermediate school of St. Josef, and left with the Mittlerer Bildungsabschluss, the intermediate school-leaving certificate. Dominican sisters from Niederviehbach had opened the convent school in 1916; in the 1990s it still had about 280 pupils, and sisters taught there during her enrolment.

She grew up on a family farm near Schwandorf. The Bayerisches Landwirtschaftliches Wochenblatt reported that the holding had been in the family for generations, that it had originally stood in Grafenwöhr, and that it had been relocated to make room for the troop training area. The Upper Palatinate paper Onetz reported in 2026, after an official visit she made to the federal forestry service on the training area, that her grandparents came from Haag, a locality dissolved in 1938 when the area was enlarged, and that the visit was the first time she had stood at an ancestor’s grave there. The childhood farm grew potatoes. She told the Wochenblatt that she had in effect grown up on the potato field, and that after the intermediate certificate it was still open whether she or her brother would take the holding on; both helped their mother, who as a widow ran it alone.

The Bundestag biography, which notes that its details rest on members’ own statements, records an apprenticeship from 1997 to 2000 with the district association of the Bavarian Red Cross in Schwandorf, finished as a Bürokauffrau—an office-management clerk—with a certificate from the chamber of industry and commerce. The ministry biography names the same employer, qualification and years. From 2000 to 2002 she attended the Staatliche Berufliche Oberschule Schwandorf, the state vocational upper secondary school. That entry lists both the Fachhochschulreife, qualifying the holder for a university of applied sciences, and the fachgebundene Hochschulreife in economics, a subject-restricted entrance qualification for university. The ministry biography and her profile on the Christian Social Union executive page mention only the subject-restricted qualification.

University studies and teacher training

From 2002 to 2004 she completed the Grundstudium, the first phase of the degree, in Wirtschaftspädagogik—business education—with English as the second subject, in the faculty of business and social sciences at the Friedrich-Alexander University of Erlangen–Nuremberg. In 2004–05 she spent a year abroad at the University of Hull. Published accounts do not agree on the name of the British degree. The Bundestag biography records a Bachelor of Arts (Business) with Honours. The biography of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Heimat (Bundesministerium für Landwirtschaft, Ernährung und Heimat) instead summarizes study from 2002 to 2007 at Erlangen–Nuremberg and Hull as leading to the university diploma of Diplom-Handelslehrerin together with a Bachelor of Business Administration, and states that the diploma was recognized as the first state examination. The CSU executive profile uses the wording “Diplom-Handelslehrerin (Univ.) und Bachelor of Business Administration (BA)” and dates that combined entry to 2002–2004.

The Bundestag chronology, which separates the stages, places the Hauptstudium—the second phase—at Erlangen–Nuremberg from 2005 to 2007 and the resulting qualification as Diplom-Handelslehrerin (Univ.), credited as the first state examination. She then entered the Referendariat, the preparatory service for vocational-school teachers, which the ministry dates to 2007–2009 and which ended with the second state examination. According to the Bundestag biography, the first year, 2007–08, was at the Mathias-von-Flurl-Schule—state vocational school II for the Straubing-Bogen area—and at the vocational upper secondary school in Straubing; the second year, 2008–09, was at the Europa-Berufsschule in Weiden in der Oberpfalz, where she passed that examination.

Professional career

Teaching and school administration

Englhardt-Kopf trained as a teacher for vocational schools. In 2007–08 she spent the first year of the preparatory service (Referendariat) at the Mathias-von-Flurl-Schule, State Vocational School II Straubing-Bogen, and at the vocational upper school (Berufliche Oberschule) in Straubing. The second year, 2008–09, was at the Europa-Berufsschule in Weiden in der Oberpfalz, where she passed the second state examination.

From 2009 to 2014 she taught at that school as a Studienrätin. The biography she gave the Bundestag lists the subjects as economics (Wirtschaftswissenschaften) and English; the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Homeland describes the same appointment as a post in the department of business and administration (Wirtschaft und Verwaltung).

From 2014 until October 2021 she was seconded (Abordnung) to the government of the Upper Palatinate in Regensburg. She worked in Sachgebiet 42.1, the section for vocational schools in technical, industrial and commercial occupations, as coordinator for vocational integration (Berufsintegration); the ministry’s biography says she held, at the end of that service, the rank of Studiendirektorin. A task list for the section, dated September 2021, includes coordination of preparatory programmes such as vocational-integration classes (Berufsintegrationsklassen) for young people without a training place, and names coordinators for vocational integration in a regional team on German as a language of work. When she entered the Bundestag in October 2021, the parliament recorded her previous occupation as Studiendirektorin a. D., a civil servant of the Free State of Bavaria with a right to return to the service.

Family farm

From October 2018 to May 2025 she also took over and continued her parents’ farm at Schwandorf. The Bayerisches Landwirtschaftliches Wochenblatt reported that the holding had been in the family for generations, that it had originally stood in the Grafenwöhr area, and that it was moved to make room for the Grafenwoehr Training Area. The regional news site Onetz later reported that her grandparents came from Haag, a settlement dissolved in 1938 when that training area was enlarged. She told the Wochenblatt that she had grown up “practically on the potato field.” Her mother, a widow, ran the farm, with help from Englhardt-Kopf and her brother; for a time it was undecided which of the two would take it on.

She assumed the farm in 2018, when her mother retired. Specialised potato growing, which her parents and later she and her husband had carried on for years, was given up because the crop was labor-intensive and occupied workers for many weeks at harvest; the Wochenblatt wrote that by the 2018 takeover it was already in the past. She converted the holding into a sideline arable farm and, according to the Wochenblatt, placed day-to-day management with an employee so that the work could be combined with political office, while still helping on the farm when she was in Schwandorf.

In an interview with agrarzeitung in August 2025 she described a small farm that had once kept dairy cows, pigs and hens and was by then a conventional arable operation, with a few hens still on the yard. The crops she named were non-genetically-modified soya and spelt — spelt being uncommon in the area; she put the whole district’s spelt area at about 40 hectares — and irrigation equipment remaining from the potato years. The farm had also used measures under Bavaria’s Kulturlandschaftsprogramm (KULAP), including contractual nature conservation, fallow and catch crops. She said the holding had been leased because running it was incompatible with the office of parliamentary state secretary; the Bundestag lists “agriculture as a sideline, Schwandorf” as paid activity beside the mandate until 31 May 2025.

Local politics

Schwandorf city council

Martina Englhardt-Kopf has been a city councillor of the Große Kreisstadt Schwandorf since May 2008, for the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU). At the Bavarian municipal election of 2 March 2008 the CSU took 44.86 percent and 14 of 30 seats, on a turnout of 59.64 percent; she was elected, then as Martina Englhardt of Irlaching, from 1 May 2008. Bundestag disclosures list the seat as unpaid.

On 16 March 2014 she polled 7,030 votes, second on the CSU list, which won 123,750 votes and 11 seats. From May 2014 to April 2020 she was third mayor, an honorary deputy to the lord mayor.

In the 2020 election, final on 3 April, the CSU took 130,405 votes (38.5 percent) and, on the list of those returned, 12 seats. Turnout was 55.0 percent. Her 11,013 votes led the CSU councillors; lord mayor Andreas Feller had 11,388. She ruled out working with the Alternative for Germany. On 6 May 2020 the council elected her second mayor by 24 votes to 4 against Kurt Mieschala of the Unabhängige Wähler. Marion Juniec-Möller of Alliance 90/The Greens became third mayor, by 20 votes to 8 against Karin Frankerl of the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Englhardt-Kopf held the second mayoralty until March 2022.

In June 2020 she challenged Deutsche Bahn over two traction-power routes across the town for the Hof–Regensburg and Nuremberg–Prague electrification. She backed electrification, a rebuilt station and noise protection, but said online briefings were not enough. She asked for public meetings and no ban on bundling the lines with the motorway or burying them, which the railway had rejected on technical grounds.

On 20 January 2022 she resigned the second mayoralty as of 28 March, citing more than twenty Bundestag sitting weeks and a constituency of 74 municipalities. Fellow CSU councillor Andreas Wopperer was elected in her place. She kept the council seat.

District council

She has sat on the council of Schwandorf district since 2015. In the 2020 district election, final on 3 April, she received 34,317 votes, fourth on the CSU list after Martin Birner, Alexander Flierl and Feller. The CSU polled 1,444,141 votes (38.2 percent); turnout was 63.4 percent. The group put its strength at 23 seats, the largest faction.

In April 2019 Flierl, group chair since 2002, said he would step down because of his workload in the Landtag of Bavaria. Englhardt-Kopf was the likely successor. By 30 July 2019 she was chair and due to join the district committee, while Feller moved to the audit committee. On 13 April 2020 the group re-elected her unanimously by video, agreed to work with the two Young Union councillors, and ruled out talks with the AfD.

In the July 2020 budget debate she said debt under district administrator Thomas Ebeling had fallen from 34 million to 21.3 million euros in six years, with about 22 million euros of investment and the levy rate held at 42 percent — “ein gut aufgestelltes Haus” (“a well-set-up organization”). The budget passed against the Greens, the Left and the AfD.

In June 2021 the district committee ended a voluntary investment grant to outpatient care services after the 2020 round. Twenty-five of 29 services had received from a little over 1,800 euros to just under 13,000 euros, out of 140,000 euros, a payment continued after Bavaria dropped the municipal duty in 2007. Citing the budget, Englhardt-Kopf backed paying 2020 and then stopping the grant. That spring the council, with her support, allowed video attendance at committees from 1 June to 31 December 2021, including closed sessions, if members registered and the chair was present. She said it would ease combining the honorary mandate with family life and a parliamentary seat, without replacing meeting in person.

Her disclosure ends the chairmanship on 31 May 2025 and records monthly gross pay of 309.20 euros. On 2 June the group unanimously elected Tobias Ehrenfried, 32, of Oberviechtach, so she could concentrate on her post as parliamentary state secretary. She remained a district councillor. On 20 October 2026 Walter Jonas, president of the government of the Upper Palatinate, presented Bavaria’s Kommunale Dankurkunde, citing the city council since 2008, the deputy mayoralty from 2014 to 2022 and the district council since 2015.

Party career

Young Union and local CSU

Englhardt-Kopf joined the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) in 2005 and its women’s organisation, the Frauen-Union, in 2007. In the Young Union (Junge Union), the shared youth organisation of the CSU and the Christian Democratic Union of Germany, she was local chair in Schwandorf from 2007 to 2011 and chair of the Young Union for the district of Schwandorf from 2007 to 2009. The Bundestag biography that records those offices states that its biographical entries rest on information supplied by the members themselves.

In the CSU she chaired the Schwandorf local branch from 2013 until March 2023 and has been a deputy chair of the district association since 2013. She had taken the local chair from Andreas Wopperer. At the branch’s regular elections in March 2023, after ten years, she stood down and nominated Tim Dirmeier, then 29, a city councillor from Höflarn, who was elected to succeed her. Onetz reported the meeting from a notice issued by the branch.

Regional leadership and the party executive

On 24 April 2021 a delegate meeting in the Oberpfalzhalle in Schwandorf nominated her as the CSU’s candidate for the direct mandate in the Schwandorf constituency, then Bundestag constituency 234 (Schwandorf/Cham). The seat covered the districts of Schwandorf and Cham together with the municipalities of Brennberg and Wörth an der Donau. She received 96 of 160 votes; Matthias Scherr, a district councillor from the Cham side of the constituency, received 64. Onetz reported that she was the first woman the CSU had nominated for that direct mandate, and that every member directly elected for the Schwandorf area since 1949 had belonged to the CSU, among them Dionys Jobst, Klaus Hofbauer and, from 2009, Karl Holmeier. Holmeier, who was not standing again, handed her a symbolic baton he had himself received from Hofbauer. Alexander Flierl, district chair and a member of the Landtag of Bavaria, described her as the candidate the Schwandorf association had proposed.

On 24 July 2021 the CSU in the Upper Palatinate held its district congress in the same hall, with about 160 delegates. Albert Füracker, Bavarian state minister of finance and for Heimat, was confirmed as district chair with 95 percent of the vote. Englhardt-Kopf was elected a deputy chair in a seat Flierl did not contest again. The Ostbayern-Kurier named the deputies returned that day as Englhardt-Kopf, Stefanie Dippl, Andreas Meier and Sylvia Stierstorfer. Her Bundestag biography still lists the Upper Palatinate deputy chair from 2021.

She was elected to the CSU party executive (Parteivorstand) at the party congress in Munich on 23 September 2023. On the list of women chosen for the additional board seats she placed eighth, with 311 votes, behind Emmi Zeulner (492) and ahead of Marlene Mortler (307). The official result sheet stated that women accounted for 40.5 percent of the elected board. The Bundestag biography dates her place on the executive from October 2023. Before the February 2025 federal election the Schwandorf and Cham associations met again, on 23 November 2024 in the town hall at Roding. She was the only candidate and received all 154 votes cast. Delegates re-elected her to the executive at the congress in Munich on 12 December 2025, when she placed seventh on the corresponding list of women; the result sheet again put the share of women on the elected board at 40.5 percent.

Women’s Union

She has been deputy chair of the Frauen-Union branch in Schwandorf since 2007.

Since 2022 she has also sat on the Frauen-Union’s state board in Bavaria. A board overview for the 2022–2023 term, dated 19 July 2022 and headed by state chair Ulrike Scharf, lists “Martina Engelhardt-Kopf, MdB” among the co-opted members, not among the elected chair, deputy chairs or assessors, and not among those who sat ex officio. The same co-opted group included other CSU members of the Bundestag and the Landtag, among them Emmi Zeulner, Susanne Hierl and Sylvia Stierstorfer. The CSU’s published biography continues to record her membership of that state board from 2022.

Bundestag elections

Constituency

The federal constituency of Schwandorf, in the Upper Palatinate of Bavaria, comprises all of Landkreis Cham and Landkreis Schwandorf and, from Landkreis Regensburg, the Verwaltungsgemeinschaft Wörth an der Donau—the municipalities of Brennberg and Wörth an der Donau. The Federal Returning Officer used that boundary for both recent elections: the seat was numbered 234 in 2021 and 233 in 2025. Brennberg and Wörth an der Donau were added for the September 2021 contest. On 31 December 2023 the constituency had 74 municipalities, an area of 3,068 square kilometres and 284,100 inhabitants, or 92.6 people per square kilometre; at the end of 2022, vegetation and water covered 89.1 percent of the land.

Every member directly elected for the Schwandorf area since 1949 had belonged to the Christian Social Union. Karl Holmeier, from the Cham district, had held the seat since 2009, having taken it over from Klaus Hofbauer.

2021 federal election

Holmeier did not stand at the 2021 federal election on 26 September 2021. On 24 April 2021, CSU delegates meeting in the Oberpfalzhalle in Schwandorf chose Martina Englhardt-Kopf, then the town’s second mayor, over the Cham district councillor Matthias Scherr by 96 votes to 64. She was the first woman the CSU nominated for the direct mandate, and Holmeier handed her the symbolic baton he had received from Hofbauer in 2009.

Of 222,424 people eligible to vote, 174,957 did so, a turnout of 78.7 percent and 3.5 points above 2017. Englhardt-Kopf won the constituency with 60,924 first votes, 35.1 percent of 173,755 valid first votes, 13.2 points below the CSU’s 2017 share. Marianne Schieder of the Social Democratic Party, already a member of the Bundestag, was second with 39,615 votes (22.8 percent, down 1.1 points).

The Free Voters, whose direct candidate was Christian Schindler from Landkreis Cham, polled 27,381 first votes (15.8 percent, up 6.0 points). The Alternative for Germany, standing Wolfgang Pöschl, took 23,142 (13.3 percent, up 13.0 points). Alliance 90/The Greens received 7,934 votes (4.6 percent), the FDP 7,341 (4.2 percent) and the Left 3,043 (1.8 percent). On second votes the CSU still led, with 59,430 (34.1 percent, down 7.3 points), ahead of the SPD on 31,209 (17.9 percent), the Free Voters on 25,114 (14.4 percent, up 9.2 points) and the AfD on 23,508 (13.5 percent, down 3.9 points). The FDP took 7.3 percent of valid second votes and the Greens 6.4 percent.

2025 federal election

The next election was brought forward: on 27 December 2024 the Federal President dissolved the 20th Bundestag and fixed polling for Sunday 23 February 2025. Englhardt-Kopf stood again for the CSU in constituency 233, was elected there, and had also been tenth on the Bavarian CSU list.

Turnout was 83.7 percent, with 185,033 ballots from 220,950 eligible voters, 5.1 points higher than in 2021. Of 184,150 valid first votes, Englhardt-Kopf received 77,717 (42.2 percent, up 7.1 points). The runner-up was Reinhard Wilhelm Mixl of the AfD, with 49,695 votes (27.0 percent, up 13.7 points). Mixl was seated from 19th place on the Bavarian AfD list, not through the constituency itself.

The constituency ballot also included Marianne Schieder for the SPD and Fabian Georg Schmid for the Free Voters, as listed by the returning authority for Landkreis Schwandorf. Across the whole seat the SPD took 25,534 first votes (13.9 percent, down 8.9 points) and the Free Voters 13,591 (7.4 percent, down 8.4 points). The Greens received 7,516 (4.1 percent), the Left 4,914 (2.7 percent) and the FDP 3,432 (1.9 percent). Schieder’s first votes in Schwandorf and Cham were not enough to keep a seat, and she left the Bundestag after 20 years.

Second votes still put the CSU first, on 72,445 (39.3 percent, up 5.1 points), while the AfD rose to 51,973 (28.2 percent, up 14.7 points). The SPD fell to 17,110 (9.3 percent, down 8.6 points), the Free Voters to 14,478 (7.8 percent, down 6.6 points) and the Greens to 9,173 (5.0 percent). The Left took 3.3 percent of valid second votes, the FDP 2.7 percent and the BSW 2.5 percent.

Work in the 20th Bundestag

Committees and parliamentary posts

Martina Englhardt-Kopf sat in the Bundestag from 26 October 2021 until the end of the 20th electoral term as the directly elected member for constituency 234, Schwandorf, with the opposition CDU/CSU. The archived biography lists her as an ordinary member of the Transport Committee and as a secretary of the Bundestag (Schriftführerin), and as a deputy member of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment and of the Petitions Committee. The petitions seat changed during the term. The committee’s report on 2022, current as of April 2023, names her as an ordinary CDU/CSU member; the report on 2023, current as of April 2024, lists her as a deputy, with Ralph Edelhäußer among the ordinary members. Abgeordnetenwatch records only the later arrangement: deputy on petitions, ordinary on transport, and deputy on education.

On 27 January 2022 the Bundestag elected the secretaries proposed by the groups. Englhardt-Kopf was on the CDU/CSU list in Drucksache 20/503, adopted with no votes against and no abstentions. Secretaries sit with the presiding member and assist in the sitting, including counts of recorded votes. She was a deputy chair of the parliamentary group for Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Hungary; in the 20th-term board list the chair was Steffen Kotré (AfD), and the other deputies were Jörg Nürnberger (SPD), Tina Winklmann (Alliance 90/The Greens) and Renata Alt (FDP). From 22 March 2022 she was an ordinary member of the Rail Infrastructure Advisory Council at the Federal Network Agency, and from 23 March 2022 a deputy member of the advisory board of the Stiftung Haus der Geschichte.

Transport, petitions and education

On 24 March 2022, in the debate on the education and research budget, she said vocational education was neglected, called the dual education system the core of German training, and asked for federal training rules to be updated as work became more digital.

Englhardt-Kopf at the lectern in the plenary chamber of the Bundestag.

On 23 June 2022, on the Petitions Committee’s report for 2021, she described herself as a new member and cited 11,667 petitions in the previous year, about 32 a day, as a use of the right to address parliament. The Transport Committee’s recommendation of 28 June 2023 on road-haulage and logistics motions names her as rapporteur with the chair, Udo Schiefner, and proposed adopting the coalition text while rejecting the CDU/CSU motion. Speaking on 24 June 2022 to a CDU/CSU motion on the driver shortage, she said 60,000 to 80,000 professional drivers were already missing, that lorries moved three quarters of German goods, and that licence costs plus the extra professional qualification deterred recruits. On 5 July 2023 she opposed adding the highest carbon surcharge allowed under European law to the truck toll, which she said would double the charge and shift costs to consumers and smaller firms. On 27 June 2024 she argued, in the debate on the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan 2030, that a working network was needed in rural areas as well as for the economy. She also spoke on 15 December 2023 on faster accessibility in local and rail transport, and on 5 December 2024 at the first reading of changes to the Professional Driver Qualification Act, where she said the rewrite was late and that up to 100,000 drivers were missing.

Constituency work and recorded votes

The same transport work covered the Metropolenbahn, the planned upgrade from Nuremberg and Munich through Amberg, Schwandorf and Furth im Wald toward Prague. On 2 February 2022 she and Susanne Hierl met Deutsche Bahn planners in Amberg, with former member Karl Holmeier also invited, about preliminary planning and the traction-power grid, and said accessible stations at Amberg, Schwandorf and Cham had to be part of the scheme. On 18 February 2022 they hosted a DB Netz briefing on the 74-kilometre single-track Schwandorf–Furth im Wald section, placed in the Federal Transport Infrastructure Plan and raised to urgent priority in November 2018. She called for electrification, passing loops and noise protection; the railway said data collection for that section had begun. From 7 March 2024 her disclosure listed membership of the DB InfraGO coordination council for the Nuremberg–Amberg–Furth im Wald upgrade.

In the 10 December 2021 final vote on the coalition bill to strengthen COVID-19 vaccination prevention, passed by 569 to 79 with 38 abstentions, she is listed among the yes votes, as were most of the CDU/CSU; only a handful of that group voted no. With six other CDU/CSU members she filed a written statement that her yes did not cover the rules on a facility-based vaccination requirement. The committee seats, the secretaryship and the friendship-group post were offices of the 20th electoral term and ended with it.

Parliamentary State Secretary

Appointment and the Merz cabinet

On 6 May 2025 Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier appointed Alois Rainer of the Christian Social Union (CSU) federal minister of agriculture, food and homeland. Rainer was sworn in that day in the Bundestag, took over the Berlin ministry from Cem Özdemir, and then swore in two parliamentary state secretaries, Silvia Breher and Martina Englhardt-Kopf, handing them their certificates of appointment. The same day the Bundestag elected Friedrich Merz chancellor, on a second ballot with 325 votes, and Steinmeier appointed him and the 17 ministers of the cabinet formed under the coalition agreement of the Christian Democratic Union, the CSU and the SPD. Englhardt-Kopf has been a CSU member of the Bundestag for Schwandorf since 26 October 2021.

Parliamentary state secretaries are not members of the federal government. The Act on the Legal Status of Parliamentary State Secretaries of 24 July 1974 assigns them to a minister, requires them to be members of the Bundestag, charges them with supporting that minister in governmental duties, and places them in a public-law office under the Federation. The federal president appoints them on the chancellor's proposal, given with the agreement of the minister. In the Bundestag's glossary they represent the minister in debates and question time, in committee, in the Bundesrat and in cabinet. Under the federal government's rules of procedure, statements to the Bundestag, the Bundesrat and the cabinet are made for the minister by the parliamentary state secretary, unless the minister directs the civil-service state secretary to speak in a particular case; the minister also decides which tasks the parliamentary state secretary performs. Those interventions are the government's, so the holder is bound by government discipline when speaking for the minister.

Responsibilities and early activity

The day-to-day scope follows that allocation rather than a separate statute. In an August 2025 interview with agrarzeitung, about 100 days into the government, Englhardt-Kopf said she had represented Rainer in cabinet that morning and had spoken with Karsten Wildberger, minister for digitalisation and state modernisation, about proposals he expected from September. She called the agricultural-diesel tax rebate the hardest early negotiation: €430 million was in the coalition agreement but not in the agriculture budget, and had to be settled with the finance ministry in a tight fiscal position. She pointed to the end of the Stoffstrombilanz nutrient-flow account, narrower reporting on antibiotics and in viticulture, and a review of 194 federal–Länder proposals from the farmers' protests as the first reliefs.

Digitalisation, she said, was one of her own projects: one reporting system across federal, state and local authorities, and use of data already stored on farm machinery so that applications would not have to be copied out by hand. She also said that, with Rainer and Manfred Weber, she had discussed the next EU farm budget with Commissioner Hansen on his visit to Lower Bavaria, and that the ministry was dissatisfied both with the proposed cut and with plans to dissolve the two pillars of the Common Agricultural Policy. On 19 September 2025 she opened the German Forest Days, run with the German Forestry Council from 19 to 21 September under the motto "Gemeinsam! Für den Wald". The ministry quoted her on heat and drought as a strain on forests that would have to be met across generations.

Farm lease and disclosure rules

Section 7 of the 1974 Act applies the Federal Ministers Act's incompatibility rules to parliamentary state secretaries. They may not, alongside the office, hold another salaried public post, carry on a trade or practise a profession, or sit on the board, supervisory board or administrative board of a profit-making enterprise; the federal government decides any exception to the board ban. Members must also notify business income under the code of conduct in the Members of the Bundestag Act, and the Bundestag publishes the entries that have to be disclosed.

On 5 May 2025, the day before she took office, a questioner listed on abgeordnetenwatch as Laura H. asked how Englhardt-Kopf would stop subsidy decisions from privately benefiting her own farm. In a reply of 6 June she wrote that she was bound both by the members' rules, which require farm income to be declared and published, and by the conflict-of-interest guidelines for ministers and parliamentary state secretaries. She had therefore given up her role as operator of the part-time holding.

The Bundestag register records sideline farming in Schwandorf as ending on 31 May 2025 and, on the 2026 line, a pre-tax profit of €22,200. The ministry's biography dates her running of the parental farm from October 2018 to May 2025. In the agrarzeitung interview she said the holding was now leased because operating it was incompatible with the state secretary's post; the piece presented it as farmed by her husband and, on her account, as a conventional arable farm with GMO-free soya and spelt, after earlier livestock and potato growing. The register also shows the administrative board of Sparkasse im Landkreis Schwandorf ending on 13 May 2025, at €692.52 gross a month, and the chair of the CSU group on the Schwandorf district council ending on 31 May 2025, at €309.20 gross a month.

Policy positions

Agriculture, food and rural areas

As parliamentary state secretary at the Federal Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Homeland, Englhardt-Kopf has said farming should remain possible with or without livestock and in both conventional and organic farming. She has rejected abolishing rules fixed in European Union law, and has described the task as rolling back German over-implementation where that is legally possible. In agrarzeitung on 25 August 2025 she pointed to the end of the mandatory nutrient-flow balance (Stoffstrombilanz), fewer reports on winegrowing and antibiotic use, from 194 federal–state proposals she said she had helped take into the coalition talks. Critics, the interview noted, feared that without the balance it would be harder to distinguish farms in nitrate-polluted “red areas.” She answered that a new impact monitor remained in the coalition agreement and that records would not simply disappear.

She has called digitalisation her own project: one reporting chain from federal ministries to local offices, and reuse of data from precision machines, including drones spraying steep vineyards. Environmental work, she argued, had to be paid for as well as prescribed; she cited Bavaria’s cultural-landscape programmes and said area payments and payments for public goods should stand together. The hardest file of the first 100 days, she said, was an agricultural-diesel refund of about €430 million, because the finance ministry held the lead. On the next Common Agricultural Policy she said she and Minister Alois Rainer were dissatisfied with the Commission’s drafts over both the cuts and a possible end to the two-pillar structure.

The Bayerisches Landwirtschaftliches Wochenblatt reported in October 2025 that she had negotiated the criteria for a “favourable conservation status” of the gray wolf with environment state secretary Jochen Flasbarth. On 17 December 2025 the cabinet adopted Rainer’s bill to add the wolf to the Federal Hunting Act, allowing regional management where that status is favourable, easier removal of wolves that attack livestock, and continued funding for herd protection. On 15 August 2024 she told abgeordnetenwatch she opposed a rapid ban on tethering cattle. Citing the Thünen Institute, she wrote that tethered farms are less often taken over by a successor, and that an exit needed long transitions agreed with farmers or production would move abroad.

Transport and infrastructure

Speaking for the CDU/CSU in the 20th Bundestag, Englhardt-Kopf argued for several drivetrains rather than a path limited to battery-electric vehicles. On 1 December 2023, on a Union motion against banning the climate-neutral combustion engine, she called a target of 15 million electric cars by 2030 unrealistic and said transport could not meet its carbon cuts by electric cars alone because, on her figure, 40 million or more combustion cars would remain. She asked for a market for alternative fuels, including synthetic fuels for heavy goods and aviation, and for rural mobility across technologies. Social Democratic and Green members interrupted to dispute the figure of 40 million.

In VerkehrsRundschau on 19 February 2025 she said the Christian Social Union in Bavaria wanted road-user charges to finance roads again, a circuit the previous coalition had broken in the truck-toll reform. Rail would still need very large sums, she said, but subsidising the Deutschlandticket—calculations she cited put a cost-covering price at €80 to €90 a month—while neglecting infrastructure was the wrong order. Road haulage remained, in her view, the main freight mode, yet regional rail had to be more reliable; she cited broken wagon deliveries in her constituency. On the Schwandorf–Furth im Wald section of the line from Nuremberg toward Prague, she told a February 2022 meeting with Deutsche Bahn, in wording Onetz took from her press release, that electrification and passing loops were essential, and that residents had to be heard on noise.

Education and equal participation

In the budget debate of 24 March 2022 she called skills Germany’s most important resource and placed the dual education system, higher education and continuing training side by side. Vocational education, she said, was often neglected; she called dual training the “brand core” of German occupational preparation, and asked the federation to keep training rules uniform and to open new occupations quickly in information technology, the crafts and nursing. From her years in vocational schools she said the Digital Pact was stuck in bureaucracy, because schools could not use the funding rules, so money went unspent. In February 2025 she said there were far too few women lorry drivers, and that further training should cover only what drivers use. She has not made gender quotas a subject of Bundestag speeches. In October 2025 she said that in the rural CSU advancement for women “is not given away,” referring to the contested vote for her nomination.

Civic roles and personal life

Associations and advisory bodies

On 22 October 2023 the federal delegate assembly of the Katholischer Deutscher Frauenbund (KDFB) in Bonn elected Martina Englhardt-Kopf a vice-president; Anja Karliczek was elected president. The Cologne-based association calls itself an independent Catholic women’s organization, founded in 1903, with about 130,000 members, working for equal participation of women in politics, society and the Church. Its 2024/25 annual report says she was, until she left, the vice-president for consumer protection and rural areas, covering the consumer service and the rural women’s organization, and that she resigned on 13 May 2025 after becoming parliamentary state secretary. The Bundestag interests register gives the same end date.

The report notes that in January 2025 she and Karliczek voted with their CDU/CSU group for migration bills that in part passed with votes from the Alternative for Germany, drawing strong reactions in the KDFB. Some individual members wrote an open letter on the votes on the “Fünf-Punkte-Plan” and the Zustrombegrenzungsgesetz; the two explained their position in mid-March.

On 22 March 2022 the Bundestag groups proposed her as an ordinary member of the Eisenbahninfrastrukturbeirat at the Federal Network Agency. Under the Bundeseisenbahnverkehrsverwaltungsgesetz the council, nine members each from Bundestag and Bundesrat, advises the rail regulator and must be heard before basic decisions with substantial market effects. Her biography lists that membership; the agency’s list of 21 September 2026 does not. The register also names her on the coordination council of DB InfraGO, Deutsche Bahn’s infrastructure company, for the Nuremberg–Amberg–Furth im Wald upgrade. DB InfraGO calls it the Koordinierungsrat Metropolenbahn, a forum of political, administrative, business and civic representatives on the 168-kilometre line from Nuremberg via Amberg to the Czech border.

On 23 March 2022 the groups nominated her as a deputy on the Kuratorium of the Stiftung Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in Bonn, the body which, drawn equally from Bundestag, federal government and Bundesrat, decides budget, programme outline and senior appointments. The interests register describes that seat as deputy membership of the foundation’s Beirat and records it as ending on 24 June 2025. From 1 September 2025 she joined the supervisory board of Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH (dena) in Berlin for the agriculture ministry; dena, federally owned since 2000, supports federal energy and climate policy, and on 22 September 2025 the board elected Stefan Rouenhoff chair.

The register lists her on the administrative board of Sparkasse im Landkreis Schwandorf until 13 May 2025, at €692.52 gross a month. Under the Bavarian Savings Banks Act that board administers the public-law savings bank except where the management board decides itself. It also records an unpaid seat on the Schwandorf city council, membership of the district council with the CSU group chair ending on 31 May 2025 at €309.20 gross a month, and part-time farming in Schwandorf until 31 May 2025. The later lease of that holding is treated with the outside-post rules for parliamentary state secretaries.

Family

The Bundestag biography, from her own statements, records that she is Roman Catholic, married and the mother of two children. In October 2025 she told the Bayerisches Landwirtschaftliches Wochenblatt that her husband is a farmer’s son, that both children were of school age, and that the household made work between Schwandorf and Berlin possible. She grew up on the family farm near Schwandorf.