Cem Özdemir

The party chair of the German Green Party, Cem Özdemir, will visit Washington, DC, New York City, and Boston from Feb 12-16, 2013. He will provide insights on Germany’s energy transition, the Energiewende, on contemporary foreign policy matters, and he will also give a preview of the German Bundestag elections. Together with Tom Koenigs, Member of the German Bundestag and Chairman Committee on Humanitarian Aid and Human Rights, Özdemir will discuss current human rights issues in New York City on Feb 14. On Feb 16, Cem Özdemir will speak at the event German Conference at Harvard “The End of the West as We Know It? concerning the Future of Growth in the West.

Bio

Cem Özdemir is the Co-Chairman of the German Green Party (Alliance '90/The Greens). As party leader, he focuses on ecological and economic issues, including the development of a "Green New Deal", as well as educational reforms and migration and integration issues. Mr. Özdemir was elected to the German Parliament in 1994, becoming its first-ever member of Turkish descent.

Özdemir served two consecutive legislative terms (1994-2002). During this time, he held the position of Speaker on Internal Affairs for the Green Parliamentary Group, where he advocated for reforms to Germany’s citizenship laws.

In 2003, Cem Özdemir joined other senior policy-practitioners and academics as a "Transatlantic Fellow" at the German Marshall Fund in Washington, DC and Brussels. During his fellowship, he furthered his familiarity with transatlantic relations and developed research on the ways that minority groups in the United States and Europe organize themselves politically.

From 2004 until 2009 Mr. Özdemir was a Member of the European Parliament (The Greens / European Free Alliance), where he was Speaker on Foreign Affairs on behalf of his political group.