Lothar Binding | |
|---|---|
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| Member of theBundestag | |
| In office 1998–2021 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | (1950-04-01)1 April 1950 (age 75) |
| Citizenship | German |
| Nationality |  Germany |
| Political party | German: Social Democratic Party  EU:Party of European Socialists |
| Occupation | Electrician |
Lothar Binding (born 1 April 1950) is a Germanpolitician of theSocial Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) who served as a member of theBundestag from the1998 election until 2021.
Binding was born in Sandershausen. After his apprenticeship as a heavy- current electrician (1965–1968) he graduated Hesse College (Abitur) in 1972. Following his national civil service as a nurse's helper he studied mathematics, physics and philosophy at the universities ofHeidelberg andTübingen. In 1981 he obtained a Diplom degree in mathematics and physics atRuprecht Karl University Heidelberg.
Following his Diplom Binding worked as a technician and from 1987 until 1998 as an IT specialist at the Computer Center of Heidelberg University where he was responsible for planning, creating and operating local networks and high speed networks for data processing.
Binding is married and has two sons.
In 1965, Binding joined both the SPD and theIG Metall. From 1986 until 1994 he served as the chairman of the SPD district association in Heidelberg. In 1989, he was elected to the city council of Heidelberg and in 1994 he became chairman of the SPD group in the council until 2000.
From the1998 national elections, Binding was a member of the German Bundestag (lower house of Parliament), representingHeidelberg. Throughout his time in parliament, he served on the Finance Committee. Within the SPD parliamentary group, he was the deputy spokesman of the financial policy working group from 2002 until 2005 and again from 2009 until 2012; he served as the working group's spokesman from 2012. He was also a member of the working group on municipal policy from 2005 until 2021.
On the Budget Committee, Binding served as his parliamentary group'srapporteur on the budgets of theFederal Constitutional Court (2005-2009), theFederal Ministry of Justice (2005-2019) and theFederal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development (2009-2013).
In the negotiations to form aGrand Coalition ofChancellorAngela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU together with the BavarianCSU) and the SPD following the2013 German elections, Binding was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on banking regulation and theEurozone, led byHerbert Reul andMartin Schulz.
From 2014 to 2015, Binding was part of the SPD parliamentary group's leadership under chairmanThomas Oppermann.
In addition, Binding was the initiator of the bipartisan group resolution which laid the groundwork for the anti-smoking legislation in Germany including the federal legislation in 2007 and some German states' legislation in the following years.
In April 2020, Binding announced that he would not stand in the2021 federal elections but instead resign from active politics by the end of the parliamentary term.[1]
