Tiefensee was elected mayor of Leipzig in 1998, and was re-elected with 67.1% of the vote in April 2005.[2] Before 2005, he declined offers of a position in the federal government, stating his place was in Leipzig.[3]
As mayor, he put great effort into Leipzig's bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games. While Leipzig unexpectedly won the campaign to tender the German bid,[4] the middle-sized city did not get past the first round of the international competition, which was in fact won by London.
In 2007, Tiefensee chaired talks following which EU transport ministers agreed unanimously to end talks with a private consortium contracted to develop the Galileo satellite navigation system and to spend €2.4 billion ($3.2 billion) to build it themselves instead.[6]
Also during his tenure as Germany's transport minister, Tiefensee announced the little-known architect Francesco Stella as the winner of a competition to find an architectural design for the controversial reconstruction of the Berlin Stadtschloss in 2008.[7]
In 2012, Tiefensee succeeded Garrelt Duin as spokesperson of the SPD parliamentary group on economic affairs. In the negotiations to form a Grand Coalition of chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU together with the Bavarian CSU) and the SPD following the 2013 federal elections, he was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on economic policy, led by Ilse Aigner and Hubertus Heil.
Career in state politics
Tiefensee resigned from his seat in parliament when he became State Minister of Economy, Science and the Digital Society in the government of Thuringia's Minister-PresidentBodo Ramelow in 2014. As one of the state's representatives at the Bundesrat, he serves on the Committee on Cultural Affairs and on the Committee on Economic Affairs.
In early 2018, Tiefensee was elected chairman of the SPD in Thuringia, succeeding Andreas Bausewein. He was confirmed in the November 2018 party conference.[8]
In May 2020, Tiefensee announced that he would not stand in the next Thuringian state election but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term.[9]