In addition to her committee assignments, Benning was a deputy member of the German delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) from 2014 to 2021.

[3] Benning was also a member of the German-French Parliamentary Friendship Group and the non-partisan Europa-Union Deutschland, which is committed to a federal Europe and the European unification process.

[4] Within the CDU/CSU parliamentary group, Benning belonged to the Münsterland Circle (Münsterlandrunde) which brings together all parliamentarians from the eponymous region in Westphalia; it also includes Anja Karliczek and Jens Spahn, among others.

[7] Ahead of the Christian Democrats’ leadership election in 2018, Benning publicly endorsed Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer to succeed Angela Merkel as the party’s chair.

[8] In 2019, she joined 14 members of her parliamentary group who, in an open letter, called for the party to rally around Merkel and Kramp-Karrenbauer amid criticism voiced by conservatives Friedrich Merz and Roland Koch.