Katrin Langensiepen | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Member of the European Parliament forGermany | |
| Assumed office 2 July 2019 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1979-10-10)10 October 1979 (age 46) |
| Political party |  GermanAlliance 90/The Greens  EUEuropean Green Party |
Katrin Langensiepen (born 10 October 1979) is a German politician of theAlliance 90/The Greens who has been serving as aMember of the European Parliament since the2019 elections. Within theEuropean Parliament, she is a member of theGreens/EFA Group. Langensiepen is the first woman Member of the European Parliament with a visible disability.
Katrin Langensiepen was born and raised inLangenhagen,[1] Lower Saxony and graduated with theAbitur in her home town in 2001. The same year, she worked as aKibbutz volunteer inIsrael.[2] From 2003 to 2006, she studiedSpeech Therapy at theHanze University of Applied Sciences.[3] Following that, she moved as anAu pair toMarseille.
Since her birth, Langensiepen has been living with theTAR syndrome, a raregenetic disorder that causes the absence of theradius bone in the forearm. She has previously described discrimination she experienced and prolonged unemployment due to her disability.[4]
In 2009, she worked in Shanghai several times. The same year, she completed her training as a foreign language assistant.[2]
Langensiepen has been a member of Alliance 90/The Greens since 2010. In 2011, she was elected as a member of the City Council ofHanover and served there until her election to the European Parliament.[5] Within the council, she served as her party's spokesperson forsocial policy.[3] Inthe 2013 election, she ran for theLandtag of Lower Saxony in the district ofHannover-Linden [de], but won no mandate.
Within her party, Langensiepen is a member of theBundesarbeitsgemeinschaft Behindertenpolitik, an advocacy group for disabled people. She previously served as the group's speaker.[6] She also is a member and former speaker of theLandesarbeitsgemeinschaft Soziales Niedersachsen, a group within Alliance 90/The Greens focused on social policy.
For the2019 European Parliament election, she was nominated for the 9th place on her party's list. Alliance 90/The Greens won 20,5 percent inthe German election for the parliament and thus received 21 of Germany's 96 mandates. In2024, she was re-elected on the 7th place of the party's list with her party receiving 11,9 percent inthe German vote.[7]
In an interview she stated that being abroad during her early adulthood and experiencing social inequality motivated her candidacy for the European Parliament. She also spoke of "forces that would prefer to put an end to my way of life as a disabled woman" as a reason.[4]
In parliament, Langensiepen has since been serving as vice-chair of theCommittee on Employment and Social Affairs.[8] She also is a member of theCommittee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. She is serving as a substitute on theCommittee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality.[9] In 2022, she additionally joined the Special Committee on theCOVID-19 pandemic.[10][11]
She is a member of theEuropa-Union Deutschland, an interdenominational and non-partisan group advocating for afederal Europe.[12]
In addition to her committee assignments, Langensiepen is a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on Children's Rights,[13] the European Parliament Intergroup on Disability[14] and the European Parliament Intergroup on Cancer.[15] She is one of the few visibly disabled members of the European Parliament.[16]
She has called for reforms to the system ofsheltered workshops in Europe, which offer vocational training to people with disabilities. According to Langensiepen "in Germany, we are talking about 300,000 people working in the sheltered workshops for one euro average per hour".[17] She is advocating for the implementation of theConvention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities within the European Union.
| German members of the European Parliament (2019–2024) | |
|---|---|
| Christian Democratic Union | |
| Alliance 90/The Greens |
|
| Social Democratic Party | |
| Alternative for Germany | |
| Christian Social Union in Bavaria | |
| The Left |
|
| Free Democratic Party | |
| Die PARTEI |
|
| Free Voters | |
| Ecological Democratic Party |
|
| Family Party |
|
| Volt |
|
| Pirate Party |
|
| Bündnis Deutschland |
|
| Independent | |
| List of members ofGreens–European Free Alliance (2019–2024) | |
|---|---|
| Austria | |
| Belgium | |
| Czech Republic | |
| Denmark | |
| Finland | |
| France | |
| Germany | |
| Ireland | |
| Italy | |
| Latvia | |
| Lithuania | |
| Luxembourg | |
| Netherlands | |
| Poland | |
| Portugal | |
| Romania |
|
| Spain | |
| Sweden | |