Cem Özdemir | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Özdemir in 2020 | |
| Minister of Food and Agriculture | |
| In office 8 December 2021 – 6 May 2025 | |
| Chancellor | Olaf Scholz |
| Preceded by | Julia Klöckner |
| Succeeded by | Alois Rainer |
| Minister of Education and Research | |
| In office 7 November 2024 – 6 May 2025 | |
| Chancellor | Olaf Scholz |
| Preceded by | Bettina Stark-Watzinger |
| Succeeded by | Karin Prien (Education) Dorothee Bär (Research) |
| Leader ofAlliance 90/The Greens | |
| In office 15 November 2008 – 27 January 2018 Serving with Claudia Roth andSimone Peter | |
| Preceded by | Reinhard Bütikofer |
| Succeeded by | Robert Habeck |
| Member of the Bundestag forBaden-Württemberg | |
| In office 26 October 2021 – 25 March 2025 | |
| Preceded by | Stefan Kaufmann |
| Succeeded by | Simone Fischer |
| Constituency | Stuttgart I |
| In office 22 October 2013 – 26 October 2021 | |
| Constituency | Alliance 90/The Greens List |
| In office 10 November 1994 – 17 October 2002 | |
| Constituency | Alliance 90/The Greens List |
| Member of the European Parliament forGermany | |
| In office 13 June 2004 – 7 June 2009 | |
| Constituency | Alliance 90/The Greens List |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1965-12-21)21 December 1965 (age 59) Urach,Baden-Württemberg, West Germany |
| Political party | Alliance 90/The Greens |
Cem Özdemir (German:[ˈdʒɛmˈœsdemiːɐ̯];Turkish:[ˈdʒemˈœzdemiɾ]; born 21 December 1965) is a German politician who served asFederal Minister of Food and Agriculture in thecabinet of ChancellorOlaf Scholz from 2021 to 2025. He is a member of theAlliance 90/The Greens party.
Between 2008 and 2018, Özdemir co-chaired the Green Party, together withClaudia Roth and laterSimone Peter. He has been aMember of the German Bundestag since 2013, previously holding a seat between 1994 and 2002. From 2004 to 2009, he served as aMember of the European Parliament.[1] AlongsideKatrin Göring-Eckardt, he stood as one of the top two Green candidates in the2017 federal election.[2] From 2018 until 2021, he chaired the Bundestag Committee on Transport. In November 2024, following thegovernment crisis, he replacedFree Democratic Party (FDP) politicianBettina Stark-Watzinger asFederal Minister of Education and Research.[3]
Born inUrach,[1] a small town in the hills betweenStuttgart andUlm, Cem Özdemir is the son ofGastarbeiter ("guest worker") parents from Turkey. Özdemir's father is ofCircassian origin and is originally fromTokat.[4] Özdemir's mother is of Turkish origin and comes from a middle-class family inIstanbul; her father was an officer in theTurkish War of Independence.[4] In 1983 Özdemir 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 studiedsocial pedagogy at theEvangelical University of Applied Science inReutlingen, Germany. After completing his studies in 1987, he worked as an educator and a freelance journalist.[5]
Özdemir describes himself as a "secular Muslim"[6] and is married to Argentine journalist Pía María Castro. They have two children: a son and a daughter.[7] Özdemir is avegetarian.[8]
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 (Landesvorstand) of the Green Party inBaden-Württemberg. During that time he was one of the founding members ofImmi-Grün – Bündnis der neuen InländerInnen, an alliance ofInländerInnen (locals), as opposed to the German wordAusländer (foreigners).[citation needed]
From1994 until2002, Özdemir was a member of the German Bundestag; along with Leyla Onur of theSocial Democrats, he was the first person of either Turkish or Circassian descent ever elected to the country's federal parliament.[9][10] 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 toGermany's citizenship laws.[11] In addition, he was the chairman of the German-Turkish Parliamentary Friendship Group. (See list of the German Parliamentary Friendship Groups and the pages from the German Bundestag website that describes their purpose[4] and their membership as at January 2024[5].
In 1999, nine months after the Greens for the first time joined a German federal government under ChancellorGerhard Schröder, Özdemir was among 40 younger party members of the self-described "youth of the second generation" who declared in a controversial manifesto "[that] we cannot and will not idly watch the moralizing know-it-alls in our party from the founding generation" aroundJürgen Trittin.[12]
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.[13] 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 withRudolf Scharping, former German Minister of Defence (1998–2002). Subsequently, Özdemir resigned as spokesman for domestic affairs and as a member of the Bundestag.[14][15]
In 2003, Özdemir joined theGerman Marshall Fund of the United States inWashington, D.C., andBrussels as a Transatlantic Fellow. During his fellowship he gave various speeches and brown bag lectures at theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison, on the issue of Turkey and Europe.[citation needed] He also researched on the ways that minority groups in the United States and Europe organize themselves politically.[11]
From2004 until2009, Özdemir was aMember of the European Parliament in the parliamentary groupThe Greens/European Free Alliance (Greens/EFA). During that time he served as the group's spokesperson on foreign policy and a member of theCommittee on Foreign Affairs (AFET). In addition, he served as the European Parliament'srapporteur onCentral Asia[1] 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" (Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners).[9]
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 theBerlin House of Representatives, who eventually withdrew his candidacy on 4 September 2008 for personal reasons.[16]
In the run-up to the party co-chair elections, Özdemir also ran for a promising party list position for the2009 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.[citation needed]
Since 15 November 2008, Özdemir has been one of two co-chairs of Alliance 90/The Greens.[17] He received 79.2 percent of the delegate votes.[citation needed]
In the2009 elections, Özdemir was not elected to the Bundestag. As a candidate in the constituency ofStuttgart I, which covers south Stuttgart he polled 29.9%, but lost toStefan Kaufmann, the candidate of the CDU.[citation needed]
Özdemir re-entered the Bundestag as a result of the2013 elections.[18] He served as deputy chairman of the German-Chinese Parliamentary Friendship Group.[citation needed] In 2017, Özdemir ran for the male top candidacy of the Greens in the subsequent federal election and narrowly won the party membership election over Schleswig-Holstein Deputy Minister-PresidentRobert Habeck and Bundestag parliamentary leaderAnton Hofreiter by only 75 votes. He led the Greens into the federal election alongside parliamentary leaderKatrin Göring-Eckardt. Following the election, the Greens were first expected to form a government with the CDU and the FDP, in which Özdemir was widely expected to become the Minister of Foreign Affairs. However, when the FDP abruptly ended the negotiations, this fell apart. Özdemir had already declared not to stand for reelection as party leader (with Robert Habeck succeeding him), and the parliamentary leadership had been reelected directly after the federal election, so there was no leadership post left for him. Instead, from 2018 until 2021, he chaired the Bundestag Committee on Transport. Nevertheless, Özdemir remained one of the most popular politicians of the country and at times even was the most popular politician, placed beforeAngela Merkel.
In September 2019, Özdemir unsuccessfully challenged incumbentsKatrin Göring-Eckardt andAnton Hofreiter at the middle of the legislative term and announced his candidacy to co-chair the Green Party's parliamentary group, together withKirsten Kappert-Gonther.[19] Following the announcement ofFritz Kuhn to not seek re-election as Mayor ofStuttgart in 2020, Özdemir was widely considered a potential successor. Shortly after, he decided not to run for the position.[20] In the negotiations to form acoalition government under the leadership ofMinister-President of Baden-WürttembergWinfried Kretschmann following the2021 state elections, Özdemir was a member of the working group on economic affairs, labor and innovation.[21][22]
In May 2021, several months ahead of thenational elections, various media outlets reported that Özdemir had been late to declare to the German Parliament's administration a total of €20,580 in additional income he had received over the course of five years – 2014 through 2018 – in his capacity as leader of the Green Party.[23][24] In the negotiations to form a so-calledtraffic light coalition of theSocial Democrats (SPD), the Green Party and theFDP following the2021 federal elections, Özdemir led his party's delegation in the working group on economic policy; his co-chairs from the other parties wereCarsten Schneider andMichael Theurer.[25]
Following the2021 German federal election, the Greens entered government as part of atraffic light coalition led bySocial DemocratChancellorOlaf Scholz, and Özdemir was sworn in asFood and Agriculture Minister on 8 December 2021. The appointment of Özdemir, instead of outgoing parliamentary leader and biologistAnton Hofreiter by the party leadersRobert Habeck andAnnalena Baerbock came after infighting within the party over the Agriculture Ministry, and was seen as somewhat surprising, since he had no prior experience in agriculture policy and was considered to be a moderate within the Greens, while Hofreiter was left-leaning.[26] However, Özdemir had also been one of the most prominent and popular politicians in Germany for several years.
Özdemir was the only minister in theScholz cabinet to come from anethnic minority,[27] and the first government minister ofTurkish descent in Germany's history.[26]
In October 2023, Özdemir participated in the first joint cabinet retreat of the German and French governments in Hamburg, chaired by Scholz andPresidentEmmanuel Macron.[28][29]
In its ruling of 15 November 2023, the Federal Constitutional Court declared the second supplementary budget for 2021 as unconstitutional and therefore invalid. This resulted in a budget deficit of 17 billion euros for the 2024 federal budget. Özdemir announced one element of the government's response - the abolition of subsidies for agricultural diesel and the introduction of a vehicle tax for agricultural vehicles. Thwas led tofarmers' protests across the country.
In October 2024, SWR reported that Cem Özdemir wants to become the Green Party's top candidate in the state elections in Baden-Württemberg in spring 2026.[30] Özdemir has long been considered a candidate for this task within the party. He would succeedWinfried Kretschmann, who has been the only Green head of government in a German state for 13 years.[30]
Within the Green Party, Özdemir is associated with thecentrist "Realo" faction.[26]
In 2011, Özdemir called for European Union citizens to get more direct influence in European affairs viaplebiscites on key policy issues.[31]
Amid the2013 Cypriot financial crisis, Özdemir proposed making an EUbailout for Cyprus conditional on reviving talks aboutreunification of the island divided since 1974.[32]
On 16 December 2020, he undertook patronage overKatsiaryna Barysevich, Belarusian journalist andpolitical prisoner.[33] On 31 May 2021, he took over the godparenthood ofRaman Pratasevich, Belarusian political prisoner.[34][35]
In 2011, Özdemir stepped down from theQuadriga Award's board of trustees to protest the nonprofit group's decision to honorPrime MinisterVladimir Putin of Russia. The groups decision sparked a public outcry and the annual prize ceremony was later canceled.[36][37] After a two-day visit to Armenia, Özdemir tweeted in reference to Armenia's recent accession into theEurasian Economic Union that "The closer Yerevan moves towards Putin's Russia, the less freedom for media, NGOs, LGBT. People want open society."[38]
Özdemir opposes theaccession of Turkey to the European Union under President Erdogan.[39][40][41] When Özdemir criticisedPrime MinisterRecep 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 theparliament 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 GermanForeign Office and was informed about Germany's unease on the prime minister's remarks.[42] Soon after, Özdemir toldSpiegel Online it would be "irresponsible" for German intelligence services not to target Turkey given its location as a transit country forIslamic State of Iraq and the Levant militants from Europe.[43]
Özdemir was a driving force behind the Bundestag'srecognition of the Armenian Genocide in June 2016, which angered Turkey.[44] He has also been critical of Turkey'smass arrests and crackdown on dissent following a failedcoup attempt in July 2016.[45] Özdemir condemned theTurkish invasion of northern Syria aimed at ousting U.S.-backedSyrian Kurds from the enclave ofAfrin. He met with Turkish officials during the 2018Munich Security Conference, during which he was reportedly called a "terrorist" and received various other threats from the Turkish delegation. As a result, Özdemir received special police protection.[46][47][48]
Özdemir called for the German government to stop giving contracts to the American consultancy firmMcKinsey & Company, which was accused of gathering information for the Saudi Arabia's regime about its critics.[49]
On 5 April 2001, in a statement published in theFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung newspaper, Özdemir said, "The German parliament should not follow in the footsteps of the French parliament and should not define the mass death of Armenians as genocide. It is not for parliaments to give official definitions to historical events. That is the job of historians. TheBundestag is not the authority to decide on the injustices of the past."[50]
On 12 March 2015 Özdemirvisited theArmenian Genocide memorial inYerevan, Armenia and declared his formalrecognition of the Armenian genocide and called on Turkey to recognize it as well.[51][52][53] 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."[54]
In 2016 Özdemir initiated a resolution in the Bundestag that would formally classify the 1915 massacres as genocide.[55] The resolution passed on 2 June 2016[56] with what SpeakerNorbert Lammert called a "remarkable majority".[57] 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 theOttoman Empire and failed to condemn the violence.[58][59] After the Bundestag's approval of the resolution, Turkish media "waged a war" against him[60] and he received multiple death threats.[61][62]
Özdemir advocated legalizingcannabis. In December 2014, hisparliamentary immunity from prosecution was lifted when Berlin prosecutors opened an investigation into suspected growing of drugs after anIce Bucket Challenge video showed him with acannabis plant in the background.[63] In a subsequent interview withWestdeutsche 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."[64]
Özdemir is a supporter of theCampaign 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."[65]
Özdemir is in favour of a general speed limit on GermanAutobahns. According to him, "The introduction of a maximum speed on motorways in Germany would have only advantages: fewer traffic fatalities, immediate climate protection and practically no costs".[66] Furthermore, he stated that "A speed limit would be a requirement of common sense for an enlightened society in the 21st century".[67] He compared the debate ofspeed limits in Germany with that of theright to bear arms in the United States.[68]
The AKP government, a considerable number of Turkish groups, the opposition party in the Turkish parliament, institutions and both pro-government and anti-government Turkish media waged a war against [Cem] Özdemir and the German parliament expressing Islamic superiority, denial, hatred of Armenians and excusing the Armenian massacres by accusing Armenians of collaborating with Russia during the First World War. The reaction of the main opposition party, CHP (Republican People's Party), was no different from that of the ruling party.
