Maria Franziska Flachsbarth (née Füßmann; born 2 June 1963) is a German veterinarian and politician of the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) who served as Parliamentary State Secretary in the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development in the fourth coalition government of Chancellor Angela Merkel from 2018 to 2021.

[1] She also joined the parliament's Council of Elders, which – among other duties – determines daily legislative agenda items and assigns committee chairperson, based on party representation.

Ahead of the 2005 state elections in Schleswig-Holstein, Peter Harry Carstensen included Flachsbarth in his shadow cabinet for the Christian Democrats' campaign to unseat incumbent Heide Simonis as Minister-President.

[3] In the negotiations to form a coalition government following the 2017 federal elections, Flachsbarth was part of the working group on agriculture, led by Julia Klöckner, Christian Schmidt, and Anke Rehlinger.

With the formation of the fourth Grand Coalition under Merkel, in 2018, Flachsbarth became – alongside Norbert Barthle – one of two Parliamentary State Secretaries at the Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, this time under the leadership of minister Gerd Müller.