Speaker
Rebecca
Harms
Position
Institution
Rebecca Harms is a Member of the European Parliament in the Greens/EFA group since 2004 and has been President of the group from 2009 until 2016. Since 2016, Rebecca is Co-President of the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine), member of the Delegation to the EU-Ukraine Association Cooperation Committee and member of the Committee of Industry, Research and Energy. She is substitute member of the Committee of Environment, Public Health and Food Safety, of the Committee of Foreign Affairs and of the Delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee.
Rebecca Harms is one of the vehement champions of ambitious climate policies and a sustainable economy. In her work on EU relations with Eastern Europe, Rebecca calls for a closer dialogue and cooperation. She focusses on democratic reforms, anti- corruption policies and human rights issues with special attention to the peaceful resolution of so-called frozen conflicts. Rebecca is a close friend to Ukraine since her first visit to the exclusion zone of Chernobyl in 1988. She thoroughly followed the developments during the Orange Revolution in 2004, the Euromaidan in winter 2013/2014, the annexation of Crimea and the Donbas war and regularly visits Ukraine till now.
Rebecca Harms grew up in the German Wendland in the state of Lower Saxony. This is where the citizen’s movement against the final repository for nuclear waste at Gorleben originated – a movement which has left a clear mark on her life. Her commitment to working towards the phasing out of nuclear power and the phasing in of a sustainable energy economy has been the defining green theme in her life since 1977. The question as to where and how nuclear waste can be disposed of safely is still one of her major concerns.
Rebecca was born in the village of Hambrock near Uelzen, Lower Saxony, in 1956.