Olaf Lies

Olaf Lies (born 8 May 1967 in Wilhelmshaven) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and Minister-President of Lower Saxony since 20 May 2025. He has chaired the SPD in Lower Saxony since the state party congress in Wolfenbüttel on Saturday, 24 May 2025, when 187 of 194 delegates voted for him, a share Der Spiegel reported as 96.39 percent. He succeeded Stephan Weil in both the premiership and the party chair.

Lies grew up in Sande, in the district of Friesland. From 1983 to 1987 he trained as a radio electronics technician at the Wilhelmshaven naval arsenal, then attended a technical secondary school (1987–1988) and did basic military service in the German Navy (1988–1989). He studied electrical engineering at the Wilhelmshaven university of applied sciences from 1989 to 1993, worked as a development engineer at the Institute for Technical and Scientific Innovation from 1993 to 1995, and from 1995 to 2008 was a research associate at the University of Applied Sciences Oldenburg/East Frisia/Wilhelmshaven, concentrating on electrical engineering, photovoltaics and computer science. He chaired that university’s staff council from 2003 to 2008. After graduating he also took part in photovoltaic drinking-water projects in Cameroon.

He has been a member of the Landtag of Lower Saxony since 2008 and was deputy chair of the SPD parliamentary group from 2010 until February 2013. Under Weil he served as minister for economic affairs, labour and transport (2013–2017), for the environment, energy, building and climate protection (2017–2022), and for economic affairs, transport, building and digitalisation (November 2022–May 2025). He had already chaired the state SPD from 2010 to 2012, and in a membership ballot on the lead candidacy for the 2013 state election he lost narrowly to Weil.

Weil said in early April 2025 that he would step down after twelve years, citing his age, the strain of politics and sleep disorders. A special SPD congress in Hanover on 16 May 2025 recommended Lies unanimously. On 20 May the Landtag elected him in a secret ballot, the only candidate, with 80 votes in favour and one invalid ballot among 144 votes cast; 74 votes were required. He accepted and said he would continue the coalition of the SPD and Alliance 90/The Greens, which held 81 of 146 seats. Grant Hendrik Tonne succeeded him as economy minister, Melanie Walter took Europe and regional development inside the state chancellery, and digitalisation moved to the interior ministry. The CDU called the mid-term handover a tactical move to give Lies an incumbency advantage before the 2027 state election.

As economy minister, and from 2025 as minister-president, Lies has represented the state’s stake in Volkswagen, where Lower Saxony holds 20 percent of the voting rights, and has argued for a more pragmatic pace on the energy transition than his Green partners, including support for liquefied-natural-gas terminals.

Early life and education

Childhood and schooling

Olaf Lies, whose full name the Süddeutsche Zeitung gives as Olaf Karsten Lies, was born on 8 May 1967 in Wilhelmshaven, a North Sea naval port in Lower Saxony. He grew up in the neighbouring municipality of Sande, in the district of Friesland. The Süddeutsche Zeitung reported that he was raised by a single mother. He attended kindergarten in Sande and in 1973 entered the local primary school (Grundschule). Looking back, he said he could no longer recall what was in his satchel, but that the traditional cone of sweets (Schultüte) was full; his mother and a friend of hers came to the enrolment, after which the family had lunch, and relatives were not there. He already knew many classmates from kindergarten and later described school, after that freer setting, as a considerable change, though a happy memory. His class teachers were Frau Bauer and then Frau Strothoff, whom he remembered without recalling any truly bad lessons.

The State Chancellery records primary school in Sande from 1973 to 1977, followed by the town’s orientation stage (Orientierungsstufe) and Realschule from 1977 to 1983. He has described himself as having been a shy pupil. An NDR profile adds that an early interest in mathematics and physics made him something of an outsider as a child, and that a fascination with ships dated from those years.

Apprenticeship and studies

From 1983 to 1987 Lies trained as a radio electronics technician (Funkelektroniker) at the Wilhelmshaven naval arsenal (Marinearsenal), which maintains ships of the German Navy. NDR reported that the apprenticeship kept him on board for long periods. In 1987–88 he attended a Fachoberschule, the technical upper-secondary school that prepares pupils for a university of applied sciences. That dating is the German State Chancellery chronology, which the Bundesrat biography matches; the English version of the same curriculum vitae lists “technical college” as 1994–97, out of sequence with the entries around it. In 1988–89, at 21, he performed basic military service (Grundwehrdienst) in the navy and later called the year formative: far from home, but marked by the cohesion of service life. The Wilhelmshavener Zeitung reported that he served that conscription on the Köln-class frigate Braunschweig.

From 1989 to 1993 he studied electrical engineering at the Fachhochschule in Wilhelmshaven. His biography on the website of the Landtag of Lower Saxony records that he finished as a Diplom-Ingenieur. The Süddeutsche Zeitung has presented the qualification as one taken on the second educational route (zweiter Bildungsweg), after the Realschule, the naval apprenticeship and the Fachoberschule rather than through a Gymnasium. NDR noted that the interest in mathematics and physics never dropped away and later showed in work on energy technology and renewable energy.

Engineering and academic career

Development work

After his Diplom in electrical engineering at the Fachhochschule Wilhelmshaven, Olaf Lies worked as a development engineer (Entwicklungsingenieur) at the Institut für Technisch-Wissenschaftliche Innovation (ITI) in the city. The curriculum vitae issued by the State Chancellery of Lower Saxony, and the biography kept by the Landtag of Lower Saxony, date that post to 1993–1995. The Bundesrat biography instead places his studies in 1989–1992 and the ITI appointment in 1992–1994. Published accounts give little further detail on the institute. NDR describes his work as a development engineer as hardware and software development, and reports that as a young engineer he travelled twice to Cameroon to carry out water projects based on photovoltaic technology. The same report says that, in his account, a personal connection to that work has continued; it does not name a client, sites or years.

University teaching and the staff council

He next became a scientific staff member (wissenschaftlicher Mitarbeiter) at the Fachhochschule in Wilhelmshaven. The State Chancellery dates the post from 1995 to 2008 and names electrical engineering, photovoltaics and computer science as its fields. The Bundesrat dates a combined role as scientific staff member and lecturer (Dozent) from 1994 to 2008. The Landtag biography, the Munzinger archive and NDR likewise describe later teaching alongside the staff post. On 1 January 2000 the Fachhochschule Wilhelmshaven merged with the Fachhochschulen of Oldenburg and of East Frisia (Emden/Leer) to form the Fachhochschule Oldenburg/Ostfriesland/Wilhelmshaven. That institution was divided on 1 September 2009, and the Wilhelmshaven, Oldenburg and Elsfleth sites became the Jade Hochschule Wilhelmshaven/Oldenburg/Elsfleth. Lies had already left regular employment when he took his seat in the Landtag on 26 February 2008. The Landtag’s disclosure register records a statutory right to resume the former employment at the Jade Hochschule after the mandate ends.

From 1996 he served on the staff council (Personalrat). Munzinger, the State Chancellery and NDR date his chairmanship from 2003; the State Chancellery specifies the chair of the staff council of the entire merged Fachhochschule, held until 2008. The Landtag biography dates the chairmanship from 2004. Munzinger also records many years on the senate of the Fachhochschule Oldenburg/Ostfriesland/Wilhelmshaven. Alongside the university post he was active in the Deutsche Angestellten-Gewerkschaft and, after that union was absorbed into ver.di, founded in Berlin in March 2001, in ver.di. NDR reports that this union work produced his contact with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, which he joined in January 2002.

Entry into politics and the Landtag

Local offices

Lies's party career began in the municipality of Sande, in the district of Friesland in Lower Saxony. In 2001 he stood for the municipal council as a non-member candidate of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD); he joined the party in 2002 and was made chair of its Sande branch. The Landtag of Lower Saxony records him as a member of the Sande council since 2002 and of the Friesland district council (Kreistag) since 2006. In April 2005 the SPD sub-district (Unterbezirk) of Friesland elected him chair with 75 of 76 delegate votes and no opposing candidate, in succession to Günther Heußen, who had held the post for 18 years. The Nordwest-Zeitung later reported that he also became a deputy Landrat of the district in 2006.

State parliament and the 2011 leadership contest

At the state election of 27 January 2008 Lies won the direct mandate in the newly drawn constituency 70, Friesland, which covers the district. In the state returning officer's official comparison figures he received 18,300 first votes (41.1 percent), ahead of Christian Democratic Union (CDU) candidate Elisabeth Onken on 16,961 (38.1 percent). Turnout was 57.0 percent. On second votes in the constituency the SPD, at 34.0 percent, finished behind the CDU on 39.1 percent. He took his seat when the new Landtag met on 26 February 2008. From June 2010 until February 2013 he was deputy chair of the SPD parliamentary group, and in 2010 he was elected state chair of the Lower Saxony SPD.

He held the Friesland seat at the next three state elections. On 20 January 2013 the official result was 22,824 first votes (48.9 percent), against 16,385 (35.1 percent) for the CDU candidate, with turnout at 59.2 percent. On 15 October 2017 he received 29,353 votes (54.2 percent) to 13,953 (25.7 percent) for CDU candidate Jens Damm; turnout was 63.9 percent. On 9 October 2022 he was returned with 24,660 votes (49.0 percent), while the CDU candidate received 13,315 (26.4 percent); turnout was 59.5 percent. The Landtag lists him as a member of the 16th through 19th electoral periods.

The lead candidacy for the January 2013 election was settled earlier, and not by the state executive alone. On 27 November 2011 the Lower Saxony SPD held a binding membership ballot, described at the time as the first of its kind in a state association of this size. Members voted in 563 local polling stations, with no postal ballot, between Lies, then state chair, and Stephan Weil, the mayor of Hanover. The state party announced a provisional result that evening of 53.3 percent (13,694 votes) for Weil and 46.1 percent (11,851) for Lies. Turnout was 39.6 percent of nearly 65,000 eligible members. The margin was narrower than many observers had expected: Lies was strongest in the north-west, Weil in the south and east, including the Hanover area. The German press agency later reported the final count as 13,713 votes for Weil and 11,872 for Lies, with just under 40 percent of members taking part. The vote did not require confirmation by a party congress. Lies, who had said he would give up the state chairmanship if he lost, announced the next day that the handover would take place at a special congress, then expected in January; he kept his Landtag seat. Weil was to challenge the incumbent minister-president, David McAllister of the CDU.

Ministerial offices, 2013–2025

Olaf Lies held three specialist portfolios under Minister-President Stephan Weil of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 19 February 2013 until 20 May 2025, when he left them on election as minister-president of Lower Saxony. The offices tracked the state's coalition changes: SPD with Alliance 90/The Greens from 2013 to 2017, a grand coalition of the SPD and the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) from 2017 to 2022, and an SPD–Green government again from November 2022. The Landtag of Lower Saxony elected Weil on 19 February 2013 with the 69 votes of the red–green majority, one seat above the required number, in succession to David McAllister; the SPD took five ministries and the premiership, and the Greens four, with the ministers appointed the same day. That one-seat majority later disappeared when the Green deputy Elke Twesten joined the CDU, and the election of 15 October 2017 produced the grand coalition. After the election of 9 October 2022, in which the SPD and Greens won 81 of 146 seats, Weil's third cabinet was appointed and sworn in on 8 November 2022.

Economy, labour and transport

From 19 February 2013 to 22 November 2017 Lies was Minister for Economic Affairs, Labour and Transport, covering industrial and labour-market policy and the state's roads, railways, ports and public transport. In that office he sat on the supervisory board of Volkswagen AG from 19 February 2013 until 14 December 2017. In July 2014 the state government launched a skilled-labour initiative, backed by about €200 million from the European Social Fund and drawn up with employers, trade unions, chambers and the Federal Employment Agency, for shortages expected from demographic change. In 2017 the ministry was the focus of a procurement controversy, including contracts for the state website and an electromobility campaign, which a parliamentary committee of inquiry examined; that dispute is treated under Controversies. His part in Volkswagen's later restructuring is set out under Economic and industrial policy.

Environment, energy and climate protection

On 22 November 2017 the Landtag re-elected Weil, with 104 votes, to lead an SPD–CDU cabinet in which each party held five ministries. CDU state leader Bernd Althusmann became deputy minister-president and minister for economic affairs, labour, transport and digitalisation, and Lies moved to Minister for the Environment, Energy, Building and Climate Protection, the post he held until 8 November 2022.

In December 2020 the Landtag, voting with the grand coalition, passed the Lower Saxony Climate Protection Act. It set climate neutrality by 2050 and full coverage of the state's energy demand from renewable sources by 2040, and climate protection was written into the state constitution. The government attached a programme of about €1 billion and 46 measures, including a solar obligation for new commercial roofs and a first step into hydrogen; about €550 million was to come from a coronavirus special fund. Lies called it the state's largest climate-protection investment programme to date. Fridays for Future and the Greens called 2050 too late—activists argued for 2035—and said the measures were not binding enough. Later revisions of those targets are discussed under Energy, climate and infrastructure.

As energy minister in the 2022 gas crisis he pressed Berlin for liquefied natural gas terminals. In a March 2022 letter to federal economics minister Robert Habeck he proposed a joint declaration on projects at Wilhelmshaven and Stade, including a federal share of the cost, and wrote that first deliveries through Wilhelmshaven could start before the end of 2022, earlier than then expected at Brunsbüttel. Permitting, environmental objections and later operation of the terminals are treated in that energy section.

Economy, transport, building and digitalisation

The 2022 coalition gave the Greens four ministries, including the environment under Christian Meyer, and made Julia Willie Hamburg deputy minister-president and education minister. From 8 November 2022 to 20 May 2025 Lies was again an economics minister, this time for Economic Affairs, Transport, Building and Digitalisation: the 2013–2017 economics and transport brief, with building carried over from the environment ministry and digitalisation taken from the portfolio Althusmann had held. The chancellery's list of the 8 November appointments records the same duties, as economic affairs, building, transport and digitalisation.

In February 2025 the cabinet approved a digitalisation roadmap he presented, with 117 measures and about €880 million, of which about €761 million was state money and the rest European Union and federal funds. The items included an artificial-intelligence research centre in Osnabrück, further informatics training for vocational-school teachers, and more fibre-optic rollout. The Lower Saxony chamber of industry and commerce backed the plan but asked that the money be fixed in a binding way; CDU parliamentary leader Sebastian Lechner called it unambitious and a copy of the 2018 master plan Althusmann had introduced.

In 2024 the federal government and Lower Saxony took temporary majority stakes in the cruise-ship builder Meyer Werft at Papenburg and backed bank loans to the yard. Lies told the Landtag that the financing gap threatened more than 20,000 jobs at the company and among its suppliers. The terms of that rescue, and Volkswagen's restructuring while he again held the economics portfolio, are set out under Economic and industrial policy.

Role in the Bundesrat

In the German Bundesrat his status changed with each cabinet. He was a deputy member from 19 February 2013 to 22 November 2017 and again from 8 November 2022 to 20 May 2025, and a full member from 22 November 2017 to 8 November 2022. On 15 December 2017 the Bundesrat elected him chair of its environment committee, the Committee for the Environment, Nature Conservation and Reactor Safety, in succession to Stefan Wenzel, the Green environment minister who had left with the change of coalition. By the chamber's practice each Land permanently chairs one of the 16 specialist committees, and Lower Saxony has chaired the environment committee since it was formed in 1986 after the Chernobyl disaster. On 25 November 2022, after Lies had moved to the economics ministry, the Bundesrat elected Christian Meyer, the new environment minister, to succeed him as chair. Deputy membership ended on 20 May 2025, when election as minister-president made him a full member again.

Minister-President of Lower Saxony

Succession to Stephan Weil

On 1 April 2025 Stephan Weil announced in Hanover that he would resign in May as Minister-President of Lower Saxony and as state chair of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), proposing Economics Minister Olaf Lies for both posts. Weil, then 66, cited years of pressure, sleep disorders and an especially draining Bundestag campaign, and said he could go because a successor was ready. He had repeatedly pledged to serve out the term.

The Christian Democratic Union (CDU) called the timing tactical. Floor leader Sebastian Lechner spoke of a "clear breach of word" and a party manoeuvre after the SPD's weak federal result; parliamentary business manager Carina Hermann said 2022 voters had chosen Weil, not Lies, and demanded a new state election. The Alternative for Germany said a change of person in the same party would not remedy what it called a state full of pressing problems. Weil also pointed to politics: the state SPD had lost about ten points at the Bundestag election, still above the national result, and he said federal chair Lars Klingbeil was right to seek a generational change, which he identified with Lies, then 57. In the Landtag on 20 May he said he had grown unsure he could still meet the office's demands.

A special SPD congress in Hanover on 16 May 2025 recommended Lies unanimously as candidate for Minister-President; the state chairmanship was left to the regular congress in Wolfenbüttel a week later. The Alliance 90/The Greens group had already said it could imagine "trustworthy cooperation" with him.

Election and cabinet

On 20 May 2025 the Landtag elected Lies, the only candidate, by secret ballot on the first round. Of 146 members, one Green and one CDU deputy were excused. Of 144 ballots, 80 were for him, 63 against and one invalid; 74 were required. The SPD–Green coalition held 81 seats and the CDU and AfD 65, so the figures matched the coalition members present voting yes and the opposition voting no. Lies accepted.

Landtag president Hanna Naber swore him in. The chamber confirmed the ministerial list in an open vote, the coalition for and the CDU and AfD against, and eleven ministers, most of them returning, took the oath. Grant Hendrik Tonne, until then SPD floor leader, became minister for economic affairs. Melanie Walter became minister for Europe and regional development, but the free-standing Europe ministry was abolished and the brief moved into the state chancellery; Wiebke Osigus left the cabinet. Digitalisation shifted from the economics ministry to the interior ministry.

That afternoon the 58-year-old spoke for about 58 minutes. He described a self-confident, open state drawing strength from its roots, and put cohesion first. With a coalition agreement already in force, and no change of course intended, new measures were largely absent; he promised to continue Weil. He made Berlin and Brussels the Minister-President's responsibility, said the government would attend to regions losing jobs and to recruiting skilled workers, and added that people with no right to stay must receive a quick decision and leave. Lechner called the speech "political prose" and said the "red-green litany" would continue.

Coalition and the 2027 election

Lies kept the SPD–Green coalition, with Julia Willie Hamburg still deputy minister-president, and there was no early election. On 22 July 2025 Chancellor Friedrich Merz paid an inaugural visit to Hanover and met the cabinet for about an hour, calling for cooperation "beyond all party-political preferences." They discussed infrastructure, the economy, security—including the state's large Bundeswehr sites—energy prices, steel, cars and affordable mobility. Lies said pointing at others did not help. In June 2026 he told the Deutsche Presse-Agentur that people might accept reforms only if they knew what better result they produced, and that Merz's government had not conveyed that "target picture" well enough. He called the national mood too pessimistic and getting the economy moving the priority, because social policy depended on it.

An infratest dimap poll for NDR, taken from 12 to 17 November 2025 among 1,156 eligible voters, put the SPD and CDU at 26 percent each, the AfD at 20 and the Greens at 12. Red-green would again lack a majority. Once alliances with the AfD—which the other parties ruled out—were set aside, only an SPD–CDU government would have one. Satisfaction was 43 percent for Lies, 18 for Hamburg and 14 for Lechner, and 47 percent both for and against the state government. The institute said the SPD had come through the handover undamaged and tied the CDU's losses and AfD's gains mainly to the federal trend. An INSA online poll of 1,000 people for Bild, from 1 to 8 September 2026, put the SPD at 26 percent, the CDU at 22, the AfD at 21 and the Greens at 15, within a stated margin of 3.1 points. The state government set the next Landtag election for 26 September 2027, inside the constitutional window of 56 to 59 months after the Landtag convened on 8 November 2022.

Party leadership in the SPD

State chair, 2010–2012

At the end of 2024 the Lower Saxony organization of the Social Democratic Party of Germany had 46,800 members; by the end of November 2025 the figure was 46,013. In the CDU/CSU–SPD coalition talks of March 2025, Lars Klingbeil, Boris Pistorius and Matthias Miersch were in the SPD's main negotiating group, while Lies, then the state's economics minister, led the party's working group on climate and energy.

On 29 May 2010 a state congress in Stade elected Lies to succeed Garrelt Duin, who had given up the chair after internal quarrels and weak election results. Lies, a 43-year-old electrical engineer and member of the Landtag of Lower Saxony from Friesland, was the only candidate after regional meetings had preferred him to Stefan Schostok. He received 194 of 213 valid votes, 91.1 percent, with 14 against and five abstentions, and said the party would be back in government within 1,000 days and that he would visit 100 local branches within two years.

The term ended with the membership ballot of 27 November 2011 on the lead candidate for the 2013 state election, the first such vote in an SPD state association of this size. Stephan Weil, then mayor of Hanover, won 53.3 percent (13,694 votes) to Lies's 46.1 percent (11,851); turnout was 39.6 percent of nearly 65,000 eligible members. Lies then made the chair available. At an extraordinary congress in Oldenburg on 20 January 2012, about 200 delegates elected Weil chair with 95.5 percent and, with his explicit support, elected Lies a deputy chair with 87.3 percent.

Deputy chair and return to the chairmanship

On 24 May 2025, four days after the Landtag had elected him minister-president, an ordinary state congress in the Lindenhalle in Wolfenbüttel returned Lies to the state chair. He was the only candidate and received 187 of 194 delegate votes, 96.4 percent, with six against and one abstention. The vote completed Weil's departure from the party leadership. Klingbeil addressed the congress as a guest speaker. Delegates confirmed Dörte Liebetruth as general secretary and elected Adis Ahmetovic, Dunja Kreiser, Philipp Raulfs, Svenja Stadler and Kathrin Wahlmann as deputy chairs.

He had remained a deputy chair through the intervening years. Delegates reelected him with 94.1 percent at the ordinary congress in Bad Fallingbostel in April 2018. At the congress in Aurich on 24 June 2023 he recorded the best result among five deputies, 197 of 200 valid votes, while Weil, chair since 2012, was confirmed with 93.4 percent of 202 delegates. On 1 April 2025 Weil said he would leave both the minister-presidency, held for twelve years, and the party chair, held for thirteen, that May. He cited his age — he was 66 — years of heavy pressure and trouble sleeping, and said a successor was ready. The state CDU called the early exit a breach of his earlier statement that he would serve out the legislative term.

Economic and industrial policy

Volkswagen

Lower Saxony is the second-largest voting shareholder in Volkswagen. At 31 December 2025 Porsche SE held 53.3 percent of the ordinary-share votes, the state 20.0 percent, Qatar Holding 17.0 percent and the free float 9.7 percent. The 1960 Volkswagen Law requires more than four fifths of the capital represented where ordinary company law requires three quarters, so a stake just over 20 percent is a blocking minority. Opening or moving a plant needs two thirds of the supervisory board; the statute does not ban closures. In 2007 the European Court of Justice held that a 20 percent voting cap combined with the four-fifths rule restricted free movement of capital. Germany then repealed the cap and the special appointment right; in 2013 the Court left the four-fifths threshold in place.

In February 2013 the coalition of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and the Greens sent minister-president Stephan Weil and economy minister Olaf Lies onto the board at once, replacing David McAllister and Jörg Bode before a meeting in Wolfsburg. Volkswagen’s 2025 report dates his present delegation from 20 May 2025, when he became minister-president, until 2028, and lists a seat at Meyer Werft. In September 2015 he told the BBC that those who had chosen the emissions software had acted criminally and should answer personally, and that the board learned of it only shortly before it became public, in a case the company said covered up to 11 million vehicles.

The December 2024 wage deal fell in a later term as economy minister, not under that May 2025 mandate. Volkswagen and IG Metall agreed to cut more than 35,000 German jobs by 2030 without compulsory redundancies, to restore job protection until 2030 and to avoid immediate closures. Production in Dresden was to end in 2025 and in Osnabrück in late summer 2027, capacity was to fall by 734,000 units, and direct pay rises were frozen until 2030. In September 2026, again a board member, Lies told the Landtag of Lower Saxony that a harder savings agreement had averted escalation, but that cuts could not be the only answer. He said the supervisory board had not voted to remove 50,000 specific jobs; management had derived about 50,000 posts worldwide, roughly half in Germany, from its return targets, and he wanted the Volkswagen name kept at Emden, Hanover, Zwickau and Audi Neckarsulm. NDR reported a letter of intent for an investor and the state to buy Osnabrück, keep about three quarters of the jobs and likely make defence equipment for Israel.

Meyer Werft and shipbuilding

In 2024 Meyer Werft in Papenburg needed public money to avoid insolvency. It employed about 3,800 people amid high energy and material prices.

Marcel Fratzscher of DIW Berlin wrote that August that the state should not step in as entrepreneur in a largely self-inflicted crisis, and that no private investor would join a plan of about €400 million for roughly 80 percent plus about €2 billion of guarantees, with the family keeping 20 percent and a buy-back. The same month the yard said Disney Cruise Line had ordered four ships for delivery in 2027–2031.

On 19 December 2024 Lower Saxony said the federal government and the state had completed the entry: €400 million for a temporary holding of about 80 percent in Papenburg and the Neptun Werft at [Rostock]-Warnemünde, the family keeping about 20 percent and a repurchase option, plus guarantees for €2.6 billion of bank loans. The European Commission had cleared the deal, seeing no competition concern in cruise-ship building. Lies, then economy minister, called the stake the basis for restructuring. Finance minister Gerald Heere said the aim was to return the yard to private hands once it was stable.

Ports, labour and the wider economy

As economy minister, Lies treated JadeWeserPort in Wilhelmshaven as industrial land as well as a harbour. In January 2025 his ministry was costing a multi-purpose area to the north, with a quay extension of about 400 metres sought by the vehicle firm Mosolf and space for offshore-wind parts. He said the infrastructure had to come first or the cargo would use other European ports. LNG imports, hydrogen and climate targets are covered separately. In March 2025 the ministry said Lower Saxony and Bremen, joint owners of the realisation company, had to repay a €125 million European Investment Bank loan due in 2026, of which the Land had budgeted a little over €60 million.

With Lies minister-president, the Land in 2026 joined Berlin in adding €322 million — 30 percent from the state, 70 percent federal — to a €1 billion grant from 2022 for Salzgitter AG’s shift off coal blast furnaces toward gas and, later, hydrogen, with the first unit aimed at 2027. The Commission approved the supplement on 6 February 2026. In Hanover, Continental told NDR that ContiTech would cut 700 of about 3,000 local jobs, avoiding compulsory redundancies at least until the end of 2030.

Energy, climate and infrastructure

The energy transition and LNG

As environment minister, Olaf Lies (SPD) took Lower Saxony's climate law through the Landtag in December 2020: climate protection became a state aim, renewables were to cover energy demand by 2040, and neutrality was set for 2050. The same month he told the Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung that wind-power additions over the previous three years had been "absolutely bad," while earlier years had been good, and that hitting 2040 meant more than 20 gigawatts onshore, over 60 gigawatts of photovoltaics and more offshore wind. A year later Imke Byl, climate spokeswoman for the opposition Greens, called the cabinet's strategies an "Etikettenschwindel" of recycled budget lines with little concrete policy, and wanted neutrality by 2035. Lies said farming would be given time, with other sectors making extra cuts.

The Höegh Esperanza, with the tug Fairplay-32, on its way into Wilhelmshaven in December 2022.

After Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the state backed liquefied natural gas at Wilhelmshaven. On 17 December 2022 Chancellor Olaf Scholz opened Germany's first LNG terminal; the Höegh Esperanza was to regasify about five billion cubic metres a year. A federal acceleration law limited objections to about a week. NABU, BUND and Deutsche Umwelthilfe held a hearing ministers skipped and objected to chlorine discharged into the Jade beside the Lower Saxon Wadden Sea National Park. They accepted LNG for supply security, not an open-ended volume. Lies told the taz that twenty years of fossil gas was "on no account" the aim and that the infrastructure should take green hydrogen as soon as possible. BUND's Antje von Broock warned of plant running to 2043. In December 2024 the Federal Administrative Court held that the biocide met the state of the art. DUH still wanted a chlorine-free refit; Lies linked a pause into spring 2025 to lower demand and plentiful pipeline gas.

Biodiversity and the Niedersächsischer Weg

On 25 May 2020 Lies signed the Niedersächsischer Weg with the agriculture ministry, Landvolk, the Chamber of Agriculture, NABU and BUND, a pact on farmland biodiversity. Five years on, NABU's Holger Buschmann said pesticide-free water margins were helping species and that farmers received about 100 million euros a year, but too few had joined meadow-bird schemes and the project was "stuttering." A target of 10 percent organic farmland had been missed. Landvolk called the bird programmes too complicated. Green environment minister Christian Meyer said confrontation had become cooperation, and blamed strict federal and EU rules.

Gas off Borkum was a separate fight. In June 2021 Lies rejected One-Dyas's plan to produce natural gas about 20 kilometres north of the island, with wells turned into German waters beside the national park. To ban drilling in the Wadden Sea and then tap it "from the side" would be "absurd," he said. Byl answered that a ban promised for two years was still missing from the government's bill. NABU, BUND and the WWF warned of hydrocarbons, subsidence, noise and harm to porpoises and reefs. In April 2022 CDU economy minister Bernd Althusmann limited German-side output to the years Germany still needed gas; WWF's Hans-Ulrich Rösner called that a fossil relapse that supply fears could not excuse. In May the Landtag reversed an October 2021 no to North Sea drilling: SPD, CDU and FDP for, only the Greens against. In August 2024 the mining authority licensed up to 18 years after the economy ministry had cleared it. Output on the Dutch side began in March 2025. In 2026 the Higher Administrative Court in Lüneburg allowed immediate German drilling and dismissed DUH's case, finding marine effects slight. Meyer said open-ended new wells contradicted state climate targets and the Energiewende. Lies's state chancellery said the impacts had been examined and the permit was technical, not political.

Grids, hydrogen and climate targets

No other German state gets as much electricity from wind, yet in August 2025 Lies, by then minister-president, rejected a split of the national bidding zone that Hamburg, Bremen, Schleswig-Holstein and Brandenburg wanted so northern power would be cheaper. A discount could equally be claimed for the photovoltaic south, he told NDR, and he would not "open the great conflict." As economy minister two years earlier he had backed the northern case.

In May 2025 hydrogen from surplus renewable power went into a salt cavern at Etzel, a project the environment ministry backed with 8 million euros. Lies said climate targets were unreachable without hydrogen and that caverns served both those targets and supply security. In August 2026 he told Die Zeit he would accept federal neutrality in 2048 rather than 2045 if that secured jobs. Climate policy should not be dropped, he said, "but we must not sacrifice our industry and jobs to it." Meyer replied that there would be no shift "with me and the Greens," that the state's own date remained 2040, and that loosening the goals would hurt firms which had planned on them.

Controversies and criticism

The 2017 procurement affair

In 2017, while Olaf Lies was economy minister of Lower Saxony, awards in his ministry became a parliamentary and prosecutorial controversy. The taz reported that preferred bidders were favoured and unauthorized pre-tender talks held over the state website, an electric-mobility tour of nearly one million euros, and a new state slogan. State secretary Daniela Behrens of the Social Democratic Party of Germany was dismissed at her own request after pre-tender talks with a firm that then won a contract of about 180,000 euros. The press spokesman was transferred and faced a disciplinary case. An email quoted by the taz said he had the “okay of the top of the house” to hire the station ffn for about 14,500 euros when another station would have worked free; Lies said he never gave that okay.

Before an investigative committee of the Landtag of Lower Saxony he said, as a witness, that “obviously wrong decisions” had been taken, that missing bids and notes “would have been avoidable,” and that he had handled content rather than the awards. Christian Democratic Union (CDU) politician Uwe Schünemann called that “lebensfremd.” Prosecutors in Hanover investigated Behrens and the spokesman on suspicion of collusion restricting competition. After about a year, senior prosecutor Thomas Klinge said almost all preliminary files had been closed because no initial suspicion of a crime had arisen. Behrens was not charged and no embezzlement was found; the electric-mobility file, Klinge said, was not yet fully clarified. Lies was described as a witness, not a suspect.

Industry roles and environmental disputes

When the state sent Lies to the supervisory board of Meyer Werft after taking a stake in the yard in 2024, CDU floor leader Sebastian Lechner called appointing him rather than an industry expert “extremely worrying” and demanded industry specialists instead. The General-Anzeiger reported that the CDU also attacked the state’s seats at Volkswagen. From 20 May 2025 Lower Saxony delegated him, as minister-president, to Volkswagen’s supervisory board until 2028; the 2025 annual report still listed a Meyer Werft seat, which the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung said had belonged to the economy minister and which he intended to keep.

Environmental groups disputed drilling off Borkum and liquefied natural gas at Wilhelmshaven. In February 2026 the taz reported that Environmental Action Germany (DUH) alleged a “close entanglement” with the Dutch firm One-Dyas after Lies called a stricter marine-protection bill “overhasty” and cited an investment of about 500 million euros. DUH’s Constantin Zerger said that inflated compensation fears; an internal estimate the group published put the state’s exposure at 2 to 17 million euros. In 2020, as environment minister, he had called the drilling “widersinnig” for climate and Wadden Sea reasons; after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine he said mining law left little discretion if conditions and monitoring limited the risks. BUND Lower Saxony chair Susanne Gerstner said the field was not worth the harm, and environment minister Christian Meyer of Alliance 90/The Greens called it unnecessary. The DUH warned that chlorine biocide from the LNG ship Höegh Esperanza endangered the Wadden Sea and, after the Federal Administrative Court upheld the permit in December 2024, still demanded that the state stop the discharge.

In August 2026 Lies told Die Zeit he would accept national climate neutrality in 2048 rather than 2045 if that secured jobs. Meyer said there would be no postponement “with me and the Greens,” and that the state’s 2040 goal remained; deputy minister-president Julia Willie Hamburg later called the debate “unseriös.” When Stephan Weil announced in April 2025 that he would leave in May, Lechner called the early exit a “clear breach of word” and a “party-tactical manoeuvre” after the SPD’s poor federal result. CDU manager Carina Hermann said voters had chosen Weil, not Lies, and demanded a new election. Weil cited age, strain and sleep problems, and a generational change in the SPD.

Personal life

Olaf Lies was born on 8 May 1967 in Wilhelmshaven and grew up in Sande, in the district of Friesland in Lower Saxony, where he still lives with his family. The Landtag of Lower Saxony records that he is married and has two children; Land & Forst reported in May 2025 that they are adult daughters and that the family lives on a large property in Sande. A note on his website, headed “Der Friese” (“The Frisian”), says that he grew up with his mother and has long lived there with his wife and their daughters. RTL Nord named his wife as Astrid and reported that she and a granddaughter, Ella, were in the Landtag on 20 May 2025, when he was elected minister-president. In an interview on 12 August 2025 he said the three-year-old could distract him from politics.

The Evangelische Zeitung states that he is Protestant and that Sande belongs to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Oldenburg. n-tv called him in April 2025 a Frisian and “a man of the North Sea.” Asked by Die Zeit in June 2026 what distinguishes Frisians—the question described him as a Frisian proud of that identity—he answered “Ich bin stur” (“I am stubborn”) and tied that persistence, and a willingness to correct himself, to northern life with storm, rain, ebb and flood.

NDR reported in May 2025 that he loves the sea and “die steife Brise” (“the stiff breeze”), and that the family therefore stays on a large farm in Sande with chickens, cats, two Göttingen miniature pigs, three dogs and two donkeys, Beppo, kept for 26 years, and Luca. He said they had earlier kept five donkeys, and that he and his wife care for the animals. As a teenager he played handball as a goalkeeper until an injury stopped him; he has since followed the sport from the stands. He drives a Volkswagen Bulli and keeps a 1969 VW 1600 TL, an aunt’s car and the first he rode in as a child; his mother had none. Rundblick reported in 2019 that the car showed 77,000 kilometres on a five-digit odometer, with an overhauled engine and brakes, and that he was repairing a 1951 tractor and an old motorcycle. NDR described a 1978 BMW R 100 that he spent three years converting into a scrambler, and said he has taken a daughter on rides but had little time for them and preferred the family. NDR found few interviews or photographs of the farm or of his wife and children, and reported that he treats that privacy as a refuge.