Cem Ozdemir

Cem Özdemir "is Member of the European Parliament for the Greens/EFA Parliamentary Group. He is a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee and substitute member of the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee. He is a further member of the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Delegation. His political competencies and interests include issues surrounding a European foreign policy, the transatlantic relationship, EU-Turkish relations as well as German and European migration and integration policy. Cem Özdemir is politically anchored in his home state of Baden-Württemberg.

"Mr. Özdemir has been a member of the Green party since 1981. Becoming politically active in his community outside of Stuttgart, he was elected in 1994 to the German Parliament as the Bundestag’s first-ever member of Turkish descent. He served two legislative terms until 2002 concurrently as member and Speaker on Migration Affairs for the Green Parliamentary Group. He worked to pass Germany's new citizenship laws that came into force in 2000.

"In 2003 Mr. Özdemir was a "Transatlantic Fellow" of the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington and in Brussels. In this time, he deepened his knowledge of the transatlantic relationship and drew special comparisons with the ways minority communities organize themselves politically in the United States and in Europe.

"Cem Özdemir publishes and lectures on topics including the EU-Turkish relationship, integration in Germany, migration, Islam in Europe, and the transatlantic relationship. He writes commentaries and articles in German, Turkish and U.S. media. Mr. Özdemir was named in 2002 a "Global Leader of Tomorrow" by the World Economic Forum, in 1997 as "Multicultural Man of the Year" by SFB-Radio, won the 1996 Theodor-Heuss-Medal, awarded in honor of the former German President for work to reduce prejudice, and the Civis-Media-Prize for his advocacy of multiculturalism in Germany.

"In addition to his work as Member of the European Parliament, Mr. Özdemir is enganged with many foundations and organizations. He seeks to excite children and their parents to read through his association with Deutschland-liest-vor (Germany-reads-aloud), sits on the Board of Trustees for the German-Turkish-Forum Stuttgart and the Theodor-Heuss Foundation, as well as on the Jury for the Körber Foundation Transatlantic Ideas Competition USABLE and the Selection Committee for the Robert Bosch Foundation program to promote talented children from a minority background. He is additionally a Member of the Atlantik-Brücke (Young Leader), the Southeast European Society, Euronatur e.V. and frequent guest of the Simi Symposium – an annual social-democratic gathering in Greece organized by former Greek foreign minister George Papandreou."


 * Founding Council Member, European Council on Foreign Relations
 * Attended the 2008 conference of the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation & Political Violence