Michael Georg Link, "Transatlantic Relations from the German Perspective: Rendezvous with Reality"

Michael Georg Link, German Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation, and parliamentarian

A luncheon and discussion in the Gold Room, Troy University Montgomery, 231 Montgomery St, Montgomery AL

Sponsored by Justice Will Sellers

Michael Georg Link, Member of the German Bundestag and Federal Government Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation at the Federal Foreign Office, will speak on Transatlantic Relations and German Foreign Politics (including an overview about the situation in Ukraine). 

Biography

Michael Georg Link serves as the German Federal Government’s Coordinator of Transatlantic Cooperation at the Federal Foreign Office. He was appointed by the Cabinet on March 9, 2022.

His focus as Coordinator is on deepening political relations with the U.S., on both the federal and state level, as well as with Canada. He also works to increase transatlantic people-to-people contacts, especially by promoting exchange programs for young people from all walks of life.

Link has been responsible for transatlantic relations as Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office (2012-2013) and was Head OSCE observer at the U.S. general elections in 2020.

Link is a Member of the German Bundestag where, now in his fourth legislative term, he represents the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and his home electoral district, Heilbronn in Baden-Württemberg. Link is a member of the Committee on the Affairs of the European Union and a substitute member of the Budget Committee and the Committee on Foreign Affairs. He is the spokesperson on Europe of the FDP parliamentary group. He is also a Vice-President of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, where he collaborates closely with the U.S. Helsinki Commission. As a member of his home town Heilbronn’s city council, he has remained politically active at the local level.

In addition, he is a member of the party council of the European Liberals (ALDE) and of the FDP national executive board in his capacity as party treasurer.

From July 2014 to July 2017, Link was Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), based in Warsaw. Before being elected for the first time as a parliamentarian in 2005, Link held various functions in the German Bundestag, including that of advisor on international affairs to the FDP group in the Bundestag and that of assistant to former Federal Minister Dr. Klaus Kinkel.

Link was born in Heilbronn in 1963. After gaining his high school diploma (Abitur) and performing his military service, he studied Russian and French at the universities of Augsburg, Lausanne, and Heidelberg.