Frank Schäffler

Schäffler was born 1968 in the West German town of Schwäbisch Gmünd and studied business administration at the Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences.[1] He later worked as an insurance salesman.[2]

Schäffler entered the liberal FDP in 1987 and first served as a member of the Bundestag from 2005 until 2013.[3] In the 2017 elections, he was re-elected and joined the parliament again. In parliament, he has consistently served on the Finance Committee. In addition to his committee assignments, he has been a deputy chairman of the German-Swiss Parliamentary Friendship Group.

In 2011, Schäffler led a group of fellow eurosceptic MPs from the FDP who collected enough signatures to force a non-binding inner-party referendum on the question of whether the party should oppose the creation of the €500 billion European Stability Mechanism and instead take a much tougher line opposing bail-outs for debt-strapped members of the eurozone.[4] The referendum was widely seen as destabilizing the coalition government under the leadership of Chancellor Angela Merkel amid the European debt crisis.[5] In the run-up to the vote, he became the target of attacks from the party's leadership, including from foreign minister Guido Westerwelle and FDP Secretary General Christian Lindner, who described Schäffler as “Germany's David Cameron”; Lindner subsequently resigned from his position.[4] In 2012, Schäffler co-founded the Alliance Against the ESM.

Schäffler is considered to be a libertarian.[7] He denies the scientific consensus on climate change.[8]