Wiebke Esdar (born 11 February 1984) is a German psychologist and politician of the

Social Democratic Party The name Social Democratic Party or Social Democrats has been used by many political parties in various countries around the world. Such parties are most commonly aligned to social democracy as their political ideology. Active parties Fo ...

(SPD). She has been a member of the

Bundestag The Bundestag (, "Federal Diet (assembly), Diet") is the German Federalism, federal parliament. It is the only federal representative body that is directly elected by the German people. It is comparable to the United States House of Representat ...

since the 2017 election, when she won the constituency of

Bielefeld – Gütersloh II Bielefeld – Gütersloh II is an electoral constituency ( German: ''Wahlkreis'') represented in the Bundestag. It elects one member via first-past-the-post voting. Under the current constituency numbering system, it is designated as constituency ...

with 33.2% of the votes.

Early life and education

Esdar was born in Bielefeld. She studied

psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Psychology includes the study of conscious and unconscious phenomena, including feelings and thoughts. It is an academic discipline of immense scope, crossing the boundaries betwe ...

social sciences Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of society, societies and the Social relation, relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the o ...

and

history History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the History of writing#Inventions of writing, invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbr ...

at the

University of Bielefeld Bielefeld University (german: Universität Bielefeld) is a university in Bielefeld, Germany. Founded in 1969, it is one of the country's newer universities, and considers itself a "reform" university, following a different style of organization a ...

and received her PhD degree in psychology in 2015.

Political career

Career in local politics

Esdar has been a member of the SPD since 2005 and became the chairwoman of the SPD in Bielefeld in 2016.

Member of the German Parliament, 2017–present

Esdar has been a member of the German

since the

2017 elections The following elections occurred in 2017. Africa *2017 Somali presidential election 8 February 2017 *2017 Gambian parliamentary election 6 April 2017 * 2017 Algerian legislative election 4 May 2017 *2017 Lesotho general election 3 June 2017 *20 ...

, representing Bielefeld and

Gütersloh Gütersloh () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in the area of Westphalia and the administrative region of Detmold. Gütersloh is the administrative centre for a district of the same name and has a population of 100,194 peo ...

. In parliament, served on the Finance Committee and the Committee on Education, Research and Technology Assessment from 2018 to 2021. In this capacity, she was her parliamentary group's

rapporteur A rapporteur is a person who is appointed by an organization to report on the proceedings of its meetings. The term is a French-derived word. For example, Dick Marty was appointed ''rapporteur'' by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Eur ...

universities A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase ''universitas magistrorum et scholarium'', which ...

. Since 2021, she has been part of the Budget Committee. In 2022, she also joined the parliamentary body charged with overseeing a 100 billion euro special fund to strengthen Germany’s

armed forces A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...

. Within the SPD parliamentary group, Esdar belongs to the

Parliamentary Left The Parlamentarische Linke ( en, Parliamentary Left, abbreviated ''PL'') is a platform within the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD)'s Bundestag group. As of 2022, 96 of the group's 206 members belong to the Parliamentary Left, making it t ...

, a left-wing movement. In the negotiations to form a so-called

traffic light coalition In German politics, a traffic light coalition (german: Ampelkoalition) is a coalition government of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the Free Democratic Party (FDP) and Alliance 90/The Greens. It is named after the parties' tradit ...

of the SPD, the

Green Party A green party is a formally organized political party based on the principles of green politics, such as social justice, environmentalism and nonviolence. Greens believe that these issues are inherently related to one another as a foundati ...

and the Free Democrats (FDP) following the 2021 German elections, Esdar was part of her party's delegation in the working group on innovation and research, co-chaired by

Thomas Losse-Müller Thomas Losse-Müller (born 3 April 1973) is a German politician. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany and Leader of his Party in the Landtag of Schleswig-Holstein. Career Between 1992–1999, Losse-Müller studied Economic ...

Katharina Fegebank Katharina Fegebank (born 27 February 1977) is a German politician for the Alliance '90/The Greens, who has served as Second Mayor of Hamburg and Senator for Science, Research and Equality since 2015. She briefly served as acting First Mayor in M ...

and Lydia Hüskens.

Other activities

Corporate boards

* Stadtwerke Bielefeld, Member of the Supervisory Board * Stadtwerke Gütersloh, Member of the Supervisory Board

Non-profit organizations

* Business Forum of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Member of the Advisory Board on Economic Policy (since 2020) * Education and Science Workers' Union (GEW), Member *

IG Metall IG Metall (; IGM; German: ''Industriegewerkschaft Metall'', "Industrial Union of Metalworkers'") is the dominant metalworkers' union in Germany, making it the country's largest union as well as Europe's largest industrial union. Analysts of Ge ...

, Member

Personal life

Esdar is married to fellow SPD politician Veith Lemmen. They have a son.Wiebke Esdar zieht’s nach Werther
''Westfalen-Blatt'', 30 September 2020.

References

External links

Personal homepage
{{DEFAULTSORT:Esdar, Wiebke 1984 births Living people Members of the Bundestag 2021–2025 Members of the Bundestag 2017–2021 Members of the Bundestag for North Rhine-Westphalia Members of the Bundestag for the Social Democratic Party of Germany