Bundestag elects Catarina dos Santos-Wintz as Union parliamentary manager

Catarina dos Santos-Wintz has moved into the closest leadership circle of the Union bloc in Germany's Bundestag after lawmakers elected her its top parliamentary managing director.

The 32-year-old CDU politician received 90.9 percent of the vote at a parliamentary group meeting. She succeeds Steffen Bilger, who moved to the top of the Transport Ministry. In her new role, dos Santos-Wintz will organize the Union group's political work in parliament.

Born in Lisbon in 1994 and raised in Eschweiler near Aachen, dos Santos-Wintz is a lawyer who has served in the Bundestag since 2021. Her policy areas include foreign and European affairs and digitalization. She had already worked on the team of parliamentary managing directors before taking the senior position.

Frederik Bouffier, a 35-year-old lawmaker from the Giessen constituency, will assume her former post. He entered the Bundestag for the first time in 2025 and focuses on research, technology and space, as well as domestic and local government policy.

The appointments settle two of the last personnel decisions in the reshuffle involving the federal government, the CDU and the CDU/CSU parliamentary group. That reshuffle began after Jens Spahn stepped down as parliamentary group leader in mid-July.