Duisburg is a city of steel, river and port — and of the social questions that come with industrial change. It is also the only constituency Bärbel Bas has ever represented.
§ 01The city
Duisburg grew where the Ruhr flows into the Rhine. Its harbour, centred on Ruhrort, became the main transshipment point for the coal and steel of the Ruhr basin and is today one of the largest inland ports in the world. Integrated steelworks in the north and west of the city still make Duisburg Germany’s most important steel location.
That industrial base has been under pressure for half a century. Coal mining in the city ended with the closure of the last pits, among them the Walsum colliery in 2008. Steel employment has fallen with every restructuring round, and in 2025–26 the future of the city’s largest steel producer was again the subject of national debate about energy costs, hydrogen-based production and state support.
The social consequences are visible in the statistics: Duisburg has for many years had an unemployment rate well above the national average and a high share of residents receiving basic income support. Large parts of the population have a migration history, reaching back to the recruitment of guest workers for mines and steelworks in the 1950s–70s and continuing with more recent immigration from south-eastern Europe and from refugee movements.
§ 02Issues
The issues below are the city’s, not a portrait of Bas. Where they connect with her documented political work, the link is stated.
The shift to low-carbon steel production decides the future of thousands of jobs in the city. Labour-market policy, short-time work and retraining are federal levers that touch it directly — the remit of her ministry.
Persistent unemployment and benefit dependency make Duisburg a test case for job-centre policy. The 2026 basic income support reform, with its emphasis on placement, is debated here in concrete terms.
Duisburg has long received labour migrants and refugees. Language, recognition of qualifications and access to work are the practical questions; labour-market integration is a federal Labour Ministry task.
As a logistics hub, Duisburg depends on bridges, rail links and waterways. DVG, her first employer, remains the city’s public transport operator.
Life expectancy and health outcomes vary sharply between districts in Ruhr cities. Health policy was her first specialism in the Bundestag.
Transitions from school into vocational training are decisive in a city with many young people without qualifications. Education & skills
§ 03 · Connection
Bas has held the Duisburg I constituency directly since 2009, at five consecutive federal elections.1 She has stood in no other constituency. Even as Bundestag President, the highest-ranking member of Parliament, she remained a constituency MP for Duisburg.
In her inaugural speech as President in October 2021 she made that local tie explicit: “Ich verspreche, meine Stadt nicht aus dem Blick zu verlieren” — “I promise not to lose sight of my city.”2
It would be too much to say that Duisburg explains her politics. It is fair to say that the subjects of her current ministry — industrial jobs, long-term unemployment, integration into work, pensions in a region of former miners and steelworkers — are everyday matters in the city she represents.