EVENT AUDIO: Development, trade and security in the Pacific : A European perspective with David McAlister MEP

On 25 July 2023 in Wellington, David McAlister MEP delivered an address on trade, development, and security in the Pacific.

This event iwas delivered in collaboration with Konrad Adenauer Stiftung and the EU Delegation to New Zealand. It was chaired by Hamish McDougall, Executive Director of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs.

About David McAllister MEP

In the European Parliament, David McAllister is Chair of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, substitute member of the Committee on International Trade and the Sub-Committee on Security and Defence.

He has been a MEP since 2014, when he was the CDU’s lead candidate in the European Parliament election campaign. In November 2014, he was elected Vice Chair of the International Democratic Union (IDU) in Seoul and has been Vice President of the European People’s Party since October 2015.

David studied law at the University of Hannover between 1991 and 1995. In 1996 he passed the first state examination in law. After his training as a junior lawyer, he took the second state exam in 1998 and has been a lawyer ever since.

He was Member of the for Lower Saxony parliament from 1998 to 2014, where from 2003 to 2010 he was Chair of the CDU Group. On 1 July 2010, the Lower Saxony parliament elected him Prime Minister of Lower Saxony as Christian Wulff’s successor, an Office which he held until 2013.

McAllister was born in Berlin on 12 January 1971. His father was from Glasgow and, as civilian official for the British Army, was stationed at a number of bases in Germany from 1955 onwards; prior to that, he had served in the 51st (Highland) Division of the British Armed Forces during the Second World War. His mother was a teacher of German and music. David and his two sisters grew up in Berlin-Charlottenburg. He was raised bilingually in German and English, and initially went to a British primary school. In 1982 his family moved to Northern Germany.