Metin Hakverdi is an SPD politician and the German Government's coordinator for transatlantic cooperation. A member of the German Bundestag since 2013, he is one of the leading experts on German-American relations, as well as on European and budgetary policy. His political work is characterised by a clear focus on foreign and security policy, as well as by many years of parliamentary experience. Metin Hakverdi (*1969) obtained a high school diploma following a one-year stay in Simi Valley and went on to pass his Abitur in his home city of Hamburg. He studied law at Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel and Indiana University Bloomington, completing his studies in 1999 with the Second State Examination in Law. After being admitted to the bar, he set up his own law firm. He also served as a lecturer at the Technical University of Hamburg. Today, he regularly gives lectures at US universities on German foreign and security policy. In 2024, he was a guest speaker at Harvard University and the National Defense University, amongst other institutions. He was also a John F. Kennedy Memorial Fellow at the Minda de Gunzberg Centre for European Studies at Harvard University. Metin Hakverdi began his political career in the City Parliament of Hamburg, where he served from 2008 to 2013. There, he worked on the Budget, Legal and Social Affairs Committee and the Public Enterprises Committee, amongst others. He also served on several parliamentary committees of inquiry, including those into HSH Nordbank, the ‘Cum-Ex’ scandal and the Elbphilharmonie. Since 2013, he has represented the Hamburg-Bergedorf-Harburg constituency as a directly elected Member of the German Bundestag. In the 2013, 2017 and 2021 federal elections, he achieved the highest number of first-preference votes of all Hamburg’s direct candidates on each occasion and successfully defended his direct mandate in 2025 as well. In the Bundestag, he served on the Budget, Finance, Legal Affairs and European Affairs Committees, amongst others, during various legislative periods, and was a deputy member of other committees, including the Foreign Affairs Committee. As deputy spokesperson for European affairs for the SPD parliamentary group and chair of the USA/North America discussion group, he was deeply involved in transatlantic relations and European cooperation. Since May 2025, he has been coordinating transatlantic cooperation in his capacity as the Federal Government’s Commissioner for Transatlantic Cooperation. Alongside his parliamentary work, Metin Hakverdi has been involved in voluntary work for many years. He is a volunteer with the Federal Agency for Technical Relief (THW), a member of the Board of Trustees of the THW Foundation and a member of Europa-Union Deutschland.