Niels Annen (born 6 April 1973) is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as Parliamentary State Secretary at the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in the coalition government of Chancellor Olaf Scholz since 2021. He served as Minister of State at the Federal Foreign Office from 2018 to 2021 in the government of Chancellor Angela Merkel. He has served as member of the Bundestag since 2013. After his first term in the Bundestag from 2005 to 2009, Annen was a Senior Transatlantic Resident at the German Marshall Fund in Washington between 2010 and 2011. From 2011 until 2013 he worked for the department for International Policy Analysis of the Friedrich Ebert Foundation in Berlin. Annen has served on the executive board of the SPD since 2003 after being chairman of the Young Socialists, the youth organization of the SPD, from 2001 to 2004. Early life and education Born to a works council member of Lufthansa, Annen graduated from high school in 1992. In 2009, Annen obtained a bachelor's degree in history from the Humboldt University of Berlin, with a thesis on the resettlement of Baltic Germans during World War 2. Subsequently, he obtained a master's degree in International Public Policy from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, D.C. in 2011. During his first term in the Bundestag from 2005 to 2009, Annen had been criticised as "an eternal student in the Bundestag", after quitting a history degree in which he had been enrolled for 14 years. Besides his native language German, Annen speaks English and Spanish fluently. Political career Chairman of the Young Socialists, 2001-2004 Annen served as national chairman of the SPD's youth organization from 2001 to 2004. Career in national politics Annen was elected to the Bundestag, the German federal parliament, at the 2005 election, representing the district Hamburg-Eimsbüttel. In parliament, he serves on the Committee on Foreign Affairs. As a member of Committee on Foreign Affairs, Annen established himself as a left-wing SPD foreign policy expert, focusing largely on the German engagement in Afghanistan and the Middle East. Within the committee he has served on the Subcommittee for Arms Control and Non Proliferation as well as the Subcommittee for the United Nations. Within the SPD parliamentary group, he was co-chairman of the Parliamentary Left, the largest political coalition within