born: 1955
married
land list: Lower Saxony

Office in Berlin
T: +49 30 / 227 - 74527
F: +49 30 / 227 - 76653
brigitte.pothmer@bundestag.de

Spokesperson on labour market policy

I was born and grew up in the Wendland region, where my family have run a farm for generations. I went to college and university in Hamburg, Hildesheim and Hannover - first studying social pedagogy in youth and adult education, and later social psychology.

I became interested in politics during the early 1980s through the women's movement and the fight against atomic waste storage in my home district of Gorleben. In Hildesheim I was one of the co-founders of the Independent Women's List, an alliance that won a council seat in the mid 1980s. My contact to the Greens came about through this political activity.

I see our party's particular strength in its commitment to ecological transformation, human rights and the right to self-determination and social participation - in coalitions, in the opposition and also in extra-parliamentary activity.

Committees

• Committee on Labour and Social Affairs (m.)

• Committee on Economic Affairs and Technology (alt. m.)

Political CV

• Member of the Greens since 1992

• Women's policy expert for the Green parliamentary group in the provincial legislature of Lower Saxony (1990-94)

• Member of the provincial legislature of Lower Saxony (1994-2003), responsible for women's, labour market and social policy, most recently as deputy leader of the parliamentary group

• Chairperson, Lower Saxony Alliance 90/The Greens (May 2003 - November 2005)