German politician currently serving as Federal Minister of Health in the fourth Merkel cabinet. He is a member of the lower house of the federal parliament, the Bundestag (German: Mitglied des Deutschen Bundestages, MdB) for Steinfurt I – Borken I and is a member of the centre-right Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), which governs in partnership with the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD).Spahn was the youngest member of the CDU in the German parliament, having been elected in 2002 at age 22. He has since then served in the 15th, 16th and 17th Bundestags and is one of the main sponsors of pension reform in Germany. He is a member of the Committee of Health of the 17th Bundestag and chair of the working group on health and health policy as well as the spokesman of the CDU/CSU health parliamentary group.When Chancellor Angela Merkel stated her intention not to seek re-election for the CDU party leadership in 2018, Spahn announced his intention to stand for election as her successor in December 2018. He was eventually eliminated in the first round of voting; the position instead went to Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer. Following Kramp-Karrenbauer's decision to resign in February 2020, he announced that he would not run for the party's leadership but instead endorse candidate Armin Laschet.