The Hessian Prime Minister Volker Bouffier (CDU) will resign from office at the end of May.

The 70-year-old politician announced this on Friday in Fulda.

The decision to do so was made in July 2021, he said.

Bouffier did not initially name a possible successor.

The media had already reported on Thursday that the Hessian state parliament president and CDU politician Boris Rhein was to be proposed as the new head of government.

Bouffier is currently the longest-serving prime minister in Germany.

For almost twelve years he has led the state government in Hesse as head of government.

The 50-year-old Boris Rhein was Minister for Science and Art between 2014 and 2019, before that he was Interior Minister for four years.

The Hessian state parliament is expected to be re-elected in autumn 2023.

The CDU currently governs together with the Greens.

The CDU Hessen and the CDU parliamentary group met in the east Hessian city for their annual retreat.

Another press conference after the deliberations has been announced for 2 p.m.

Minister of Education Alexander Lorz had also declared his interest in running to succeed Bouffier should he resign prematurely.

CDU board will be re-elected at the beginning of July

At the beginning of July, the board of the Hessian CDU is to be re-elected at a state party conference.

So far, it has been considered agreed that the offices of party leader and prime minister or CDU top candidate for a state election are in one hand.

Bouffier moved to the Hessian State Chancellery after Prime Minister Roland Koch (CDU) retired from politics in 2010.

In the same year he became CDU state leader and federal vice of his party.

Bouffier had previously been Hessian interior minister and was long considered a hardliner.

In the meantime, however, his role as the father of the country has changed to that of mediator and listener.

The black-green coalition in Hesse, the first cooperation between the CDU and the Greens in a German state, is considered to be his invention.

After surviving cancer, Bouffier has become significantly narrower.

However, he has by no means lost his energy and assertiveness.

Especially in the Corona pandemic with the countless federal-state consultations and debates in the Hessian state parliament, the head of government presented himself tirelessly.

Most recently, he had no longer run as a federal vice for the CDU.