Cem Özdemir


Cem Özdemir is a German politician of the German political party Alliance '90/The Greens.
Between 2008 and 2018, Özdemir served as co-chair of the Green Party, together with Claudia Roth and later Simone Peter. He has been a Member of the German Bundestag since 2013 and he was a Member of the German Bundestag between 1994 and 2002 and of the European Parliament between 2004 and 2009. He was standing as one of the top two Greens candidates for the 2017 German federal election. Since 2018, he has been serving as Chairman of the Committee on Transport.

Life and work

Born in Bad Urach, a small town in the hills between Stuttgart and Ulm, Cem Özdemir is the son of a Turkish gastarbeiter of Circassian provenance, hailing from Tokat, Turkey; in 1983 he and his immigrant parents acquired German citizenship. After graduating from a German Hauptschule and a Realschule Özdemir completed an apprenticeship, becoming an early childhood educator. After qualifying for advanced technical college entrance he studied social pedagogy at the Evangelical Technical College in Reutlingen, Germany. After completing his studies in 1987, Cem Özdemir worked as an educator and a freelance journalist.
Özdemir describes himself as a "secular Muslim" and is married to the Argentine journalist Pía María Castro. They have two children: a son and a daughter. On 18 March 2020, Özdemir tested positive for the novel coronavirus.

Political career

Beginnings

Özdemir has been a member of the Green Party since 1981, originally in the district chapter of Ludwigsburg. Between 1989 and 1994 he was a member in the State Executive of the Green Party in Baden-Württemberg. During that time he was one of the founding members of Immi-Grün – Bündnis der neuen InländerInnen, an alliance of InländerInnen, as opposed to the German word Ausländer.

Member of the German Bundestag, 1994–2002

From 1994 until 2002, Özdemir was a member of the German Bundestag; along with Leyla Onur of the Social Democrats, he was the first person of Turkish descent ever elected to the country's federal parliament. From 1998 until 2002, he was a member of the Committee on Home Affairs and served as his parliamentary group's spokesperson on this issue. In this capacity, he advocated for reforms to Germany's citizenship laws. In addition, he was the chairman of the German-Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Group.
In 1999, nine months after the Greens for the first time joined a German federal government under Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Özdemir was among 40 younger party members of the self-described "youth of the second generation" who declared in a controversial manifesto " we cannot and will not idly watch the moralizing know-it-alls in our party from the founding generation" around Jürgen Trittin.
In 2002, Özdemir was accused of violating parliamentary regulations for retaining "Miles & More" frequent-flier miles accrued during official travel as a member of the Bundestag for personal use. He was also criticised for having taken out a credit with Moritz Hunzinger, a German PR consultant and lobbyist, in order to overcome personal financial issues. This affair was also associated with Rudolf Scharping, former German Minister of Defence. Subsequently, Özdemir resigned as spokesman for domestic affairs and as a member of the Bundestag.
In 2003, Özdemir joined the German Marshall Fund of the United States in Washington, D.C. and Brussels as a Transatlantic Fellow. During his fellowship he gave various speeches and brown bag lectures at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, on the issue of Turkey and Europe. He also researched on the ways that minority groups in the United States and Europe organize themselves politically.

Member of the European Parliament, 2004–2009

From 2004 until 2009, Özdemir was a Member of the European Parliament in the parliamentary group The Greens/European Free Alliance. During that time he served as the group's spokesperson on foreign policy and a member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs. In addition, he served as the European Parliament's rapporteur on Central Asia and as vice chair of the Permanent Ad Hoc Delegation for Relations with Iraq.
Between 2006 and 2007, Özdemir also served as vice president of the "CIA Committee".

Co-chair of the Green Party, 2009–2013

On 2 June 2008, Özdemir announced his candidacy as co-chair of his party. Özdemir's rival candidate was Volker Ratzmann, leader of the Green parliamentary group in the Berlin House of Representatives, who eventually withdrew his candidacy on 4 September 2008 for personal reasons.
In the run-up to the party co-chair elections, Özdemir also ran for a promising party list position for the 2009 German elections at the federal state party conference of Baden-Württemberg. In two separate runs he lost to his respective direct opponents. Nevertheless, Özdemir adhered to his candidacy for the party chairmanship.
Since 15 November 2008, Özdemir has been one of two co-chairs of Alliance '90/The Greens. He received 79.2 percent of the delegate votes.
In the 2009 elections, Özdemir was not elected to the Bundestag. As a candidate in the constituency of Stuttgart I, which covers south Stuttgart he polled 29.9%, but lost to Stefan Kaufmann, the candidate of the CDU.

Member of the German Bundestag, 2013–present

Özdemir re-entered the Bundestag as a result of the 2013 elections. He serves as deputy chairman of the German-Chinese Parliamentary Friendship Group. Since 2018, he has been chairing the Committee on Transport.
Following the announcement of Fritz Kuhn to not seek re-election as Mayor of Stuttgart, Özdemir was widely considered a potential successor. Shortly after, he decided not to run for the position.

Political positions

European integration

In 2011, Özdemir called for European Union citizens to get more direct influence in European affairs via plebiscites on key policy issues.
Amid the 2013 Cypriot financial crisis, Özdemir proposed making an EU bailout for Cyprus conditional on reviving talks about reunification of the island divided since 1974.

Relations with Russia

In 2011, Özdemir stepped down from the Quadriga Award's board of trustees to protest the nonprofit group's decision to honor Prime Minister Vladimir Putin of Russia. The groups decision sparked a public outcry and the annual prize ceremony was later canceled. After a two-day visit to Armenia, Özdemir tweeted in reference to Armenia's recent accession into the Eurasian Economic Union that "The closer Yerevan moves towards Putin's Russia, the less freedom for media, NGOs, LGBT. People want open society."

Relations with Turkey

Özdemir opposes the accession of Turkey to the European Union under President Erdogan. When Özdemir criticised Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Turkey in a speech he delivered in Cologne in May 2014, Erdoğan personally targeted Özdemir during one of his party's group meetings in the parliament declaring him "a so-called Turk" and described his criticisms as "very ugly." Upon Erdoğan's attacks, the Turkish ambassador in Berlin, Hüseyin Avni Karslıoğlu, was summoned to the German Foreign Office and was informed about Germany's unease on the prime minister's remarks.
Soon after, Özdemir told Spiegel Online it would be "irresponsible" for German intelligence services not to target Turkey given its location as a transit country for Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants from Europe.
Özdemir has also been critical of Turkey's mass arrests and crackdown on dissent following a failed coup attempt in July 2016. He was put under police protection at the 2018 Munich Security Conference after meeting Turkey's delegation in his hotel.
Özdemir condemned the Turkish invasion of northern Syria aimed at ousting U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds from the enclave of Afrin. After meeting with Turkish officials in Munich, Özdemir received special police protection after being called a "terrorist" and receiving various other threats from the Turkish delegation.

Relations with Saudi Arabia

Özdemir called for the German government to stop giving contracts to the American consultancy firm McKinsey & Company, which was accused of gathering information for the Saudi Arabia's regime about its critics.

Armenian genocide

On 12 March 2015 Özdemir visited the Armenian Genocide memorial in Yerevan, Armenia and declared his formal recognition of the Armenian Genocide and called on Turkey to recognize it as well. In an interview he stated: "I think that Germany should obviously refer to the Armenian Genocide issue. As a friend of two countries, we should help to open the Armenian-Turkish border. As a friend of both countries, we should exert effort, so that the Armenian-Turkish relations become like the French-German or Polish-German relations."
In 2016 Özdemir initiated a resolution in the Bundestag that would formally classify the 1915 massacres as genocide. The resolution passed on 2 June 2016 with what Speaker Norbert Lammert called a "remarkable majority." At the time, Özdemir emphasized that the resolution was not designed to point fingers at others but rather to acknowledge Germany's partial responsibility for the genocide. In 1915, the German Empire was an ally of the Ottoman Empire and failed to condemn the violence. After the Bundestag's approval of the resolution he received multiple death threats.

Legalization of cannabis

Özdemir advocates legalizing cannabis. In December 2014, his parliamentary immunity from prosecution was lifted when Berlin prosecutors opened an investigation into suspected growing of drugs after an Ice Bucket Challenge video showed him with a cannabis plant in the background. In a subsequent interview with Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, Özdemir stated that "in a free society it should be up to each individual person to decide whether they want to consume cannabis and take the associated risks."

The United Nations

Özdemir is a supporter of the Campaign for the Establishment of a United Nations Parliamentary Assembly, an organisation which campaigns for democratic reformation of the United Nations. He believes it is necessary "to give voice to every citizen, woman and man, all over the world; to create legitimacy by true representation, and to enhance political responsibility of the states' leaders."

Relations with the African continent

Özdemir has in the past voted in favor of German participation in United Nations peacekeeping missions as well as in United Nations-mandated European Union peacekeeping missions on the African continent, such as in Darfur/Sudan, South Sudan, Mali, the Central African Republic and Liberia.
On Somalia, Özdemir has a mixed voting record. He has at times voted in favor of Operation Atalanta but also abstained from votes on extending the mandate for the mission. He also voted against German participation in EUTM Somalia or abstained.

Other activities