Reinhard Bütikofer


Reinhard Hans Bütikofer is a German politician who has been member of the European Parliament since 2009. He is a member of the Alliance 90/The Greens, part of the European Green Party. From 8 December 2002 till 16 November 2008 he was party leader, together with Claudia Roth. In November 2012 Bütikofer was chosen co-spokesperson for the European Green Party.

Early life and education

Bütikofer was born in Mannheim and grew up in Speyer. He studied philosophy, sinology and history in Heidelberg, but did not finish his studies.

Political career

Early beginnings

Bütikofer was active in the student's movement and one of the "K groups", the Maoist Communist League of West Germany. From the 1980s onwards, he became active in Heidelberg municipal politics for the Green-Alternative List.
In 1984, he was elected into the town council of Heidelberg and became a member of the Green Party, the starting point of his political career with Alliance 90/The Greens. In 1988, he was elected in the Landtag of Baden-Württemberg. He was Member of the Landtag until 1996.
After a year of parental leave, in 1997 Bütikofer became co-chairman of the Green Party in Baden-Württemberg. Two years later he was elected secretary general of the federal party. In December, 2002 he became co-chairman of the federal party and was reelected in 2004 and 2006. On 3 March 2008 he announced not to stand again as a party chairman and to run for European Parliament in 2009, to which he was elected.

Member of the European Parliament, 2009–present

Since 2009, Bütikofer is a Member of the European Parliament for the German Green Party. He is a member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy, and a substitute member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Subcommittee on Security and Defense. As shadow rapporteur, he has authored reports on the evaluation of the European Endowment for Democracy, on the impact of developments in European defence markets on the security and defence capabilities in Europe and on green growth opportunities for SMEs.
In addition, Bütikofer is a member of the Delegation for Relations with the United States and the Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue and a substitute member of the Delegation for Relations with China. He also serves as a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on SMEs.
Bütikofer is the Green Group's spokesperson on industrial policy, and speaker of the delegation from the German Green Party to the European Parliament.
In the negotiations to form a coalition government with the Christian Democrats – both the Christian Democratic Union and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria – and the Free Democratic Party following the 2017 national elections, Bütikofer is currently part of the 14-member delegation of the Green Party.
In November 2011, Bütikofer was honored with the Fray International Sustainability Award at Fray International Symposium in Cancun, Mexico, for his achievements in sustainable development in politics.

Political views

On the Green Party and the German political system

In 2005, Bütikofer complained that because Germany has no winner-take-all political system, there were only few Green party members in the foreign service, even after Joschka Fischer had been foreign minister for seven years; by contrast, hundreds of supporters of the Christian Democratic Union served in the Federal Foreign Office. In 2010, Bütikofer characterized his party as representing “a certain lifestyle,” noting that, mostly urbanized, many belong to the professions and are politically and socially engaged. “They sit on school boards. They are active in their churches or sports clubs. They support nongovernmental organizations,” he said.

On public safety and civil liberties

Under Bütikofer’s leadership, a two-year-long effort to negotiate a revised immigration law was abandoned by the Green Party in 2004, citing concerns about, among other things, that any regulations allowing easier detentions or expulsions of terror suspects would subvert Germany's civil rights protections.

On natural resources

When the European Commission issued a strategy paper in 2010 which proposed pursuing more bilateral trade agreements and investing in infrastructure in Africa as a means to increase alternative sources of rare earth metals, hoping to break China’s dominance of the market for the strategic minerals, Bütikofer demanded an “innovative industrial policy that reduces the use of resources” instead.

On China

When German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder announced in 2005 his intentions to lift an arms embargo on China that had been in place since the crackdown on student-led opposition demonstrators near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in 1989, Bütikofer opposed the plan and instead called for a joint approach together with the United States. Since 2020, he has been serving as co-chair of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China.

On Russia

Following the assassination of journalist and human rights activist Anna Politkovskaya in 2008, Bütikofer characterized the human rights situation in Russia as "deteriorating". He also criticized Russia's behaviour towards Georgia as "almost unbelievably arrogant", referring to the country's confrontation with Georgia and its decision to sever all transport and postal links in 2008. He is an advocate of "a more open and more clear-cut language from the West, including Germany if we just don't want to be standing by."

Other activities

In addition, Bütikofer served on the board of Europa-Union Deutschland, the German branch of the Union of European Federalists, Aspen Institute Berlin, and German-Chinese Dialogue Forum. He is a member of the Green European Foundation, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the German Council for Foreign Relations, the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union, and the German trade union ver.di.

Personal life

Bütikofer's father was a post office worker and his mother was a housewife. He has fathered three daughters with Henriette Katzenstein. In 2001, he married Renee Krebs.