Reinhard Hans Bütikofer (born 26 January 1953) is a German politician who has been serving as a member of the European Parliament since 2009. He is a member of the Alliance 90/The Greens, part of the European Green Party. He was the co-chair of Alliance 90/The Greens (alongside Claudia Roth) from 2002 to 2008 and of the European Green Party (alongside Monica Frassoni) from 2012 to 2019.
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-gruppen", the Maoist Communist League of West Germany (Kommunistischer Bund Westdeutschland; KBW). From the 1980s onwards, he became active in Heidelberg municipal politics for the Green-Alternative List.
In 1984, Bütikofer 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, alongside Monika Schnaitmann. Two years later he was elected secretary general of the federal party. In December 2002 he became co-chairman of the federal party (alongside Angelika Beer) and was reelected in 2004 and 2006 (alongside Claudia Roth). 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 (MEP) for the German Green Party. He is a member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE), and a substitute member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and the Subcommittee on Security and Defense (SEDE). As shadow rapporteur, he has authored reports on the evaluation of the European Endowment for Democracy (2015), on the impact of developments in European defence markets on the security and defence capabilities in Europe (2015) and on green growth opportunities for SMEs (2015).
In addition, Bütikofer is a member of the parliament's delegation for relations with the United States and the Transatlantic Legislators' Dialogue and the chair 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 (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen) to the European Parliament.
In the negotiations to form a coalition government with the Christian Democrats – both the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU) – and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) following the 2017 national elections, Bütikofer is currently part of the 14-member delegation of the Green Party.
Following the 2019 elections, Bütikofer was part of a cross-party working group in charge of drafting the European Parliament's four-year work program on foreign policy.
In the negotiations to form a so-called traffic light coalition of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Free Democratic Party (FDP) following the 2021 federal elections, Bütikofer was part of his party's delegation in the working group on foreign policy, defence, development cooperation and human rights, co-chaired by Heiko Maas, Omid Nouripour and Alexander Graf Lambsdorff.
Following the Qatar corruption scandal at the European Parliament, it was found that Reinhard Bütikofer is, by far, the Member of the European Parliament, who has travelled the most during the current legislature. These travels were financed by third parties or non EU states with, so far, a total of 22 voyages and 47 hotel nights. Among the countries he visited there are, amongst others, India, China, Russia, the United States and Australia.