Birgit Sippel

Birgit Sippel, 2015

Birgit Sippel (born January 29, 1960 in Bochum ) is a German social democratic politician (SPD) and has been a member of the European Parliament since the 2009 European elections . There she is coordinator (spokeswoman) of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Social Democrats in the European Parliament in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE).

job and education

After finishing school, Sippel trained as a foreign language correspondent and worked in the administration of a metalworking company. She later headed the regional office of a MEP.

Political career

In 1982 Birgit Sippel joined the youth association Socialist Youth in Germany - Die Falken , in which she was active up to the district level. In the same year she became a member of the SPD and got involved in her local association Neheim and the working group of social democratic women (ASF). In 1983 she also joined IG Metall , for which she worked, among other things, as a works council. From 1994 to 2004 she was a council member of the city of Arnsberg , where she was active in the social affairs, planning, and economics and employment committees. From 1996 to 2010 Birgit Sippel was also a member of the SPD Federal Party Council and, since 2003, has been the deputy chairwoman of the SPD in western Westphalia . From 2005 to 2010 she was chairwoman of the SPD sub-district Hochsauerlandkreis and has been a member of the state board and presidium of the NRW-SPD since 2010 .

In 2004 Birgit Sippel ran for the European Parliament for the first time . In the 2009 European elections she entered the European Parliament via the reserve list as a member of the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Social Democrats in the European Parliament .

Member of the European Parliament

Sippel has been a member of the European Parliament since the 2009 European elections and was confirmed in her office in the 2014 European elections .

In the European Parliament she is a full member of their choice since the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and substitute member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL). When she was re-elected in 2014, she took over the position of coordinator of the S&D coordinator in the LIBE committee and thus acts as the spokesperson for her group in the committee.

In the LIBE committee , Sippel was actively involved in international agreements such as the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (known as the SWIFT agreement ) and agreements on the recording of passenger name records (PNR) . She has always been actively committed to the right to privacy and data protection . The subject areas of EU asylum policy , migration and Schengen also make up a considerable part of their daily work. In addition, she accompanied several EU directives on the rights of the accused in criminal proceedings (including the right to information, the right to legal counsel), partly as a rapporteur for the European Parliament , as well as other measures in the field of criminal law. Respect for human rights , democracy and the rule of law are also important issues in her committee work.

In the EMPL committee , she was specifically concerned with issues such as public procurement and European mutual society. She also dealt with the planned revision of the Working Time Directive and the Posting of Workers Directive .

In her first legislative term (2009-2014) Sippel was a member of the Delegation for relations with the countries of South Asia and an alternate member of the Delegations for relations with Iraq and Canada . Since her re-election in 2014, she has been a member of the delegation for relations with the Mashrek countries ( Egypt , Jordan , Lebanon , Syria ).