German member of Die Linke party Gabriele Zimmer re-elected as chair of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament

Strasbourg, France / Brussels, Belgium, 26-6-2014 — /EuropaWire/ — Gabriele Zimmer, a German member of Die Linke party, has been re-elected as the chair of the European United Left / Nordic Green Left group in the European Parliament. She already held the office in the previous legislative term from March 2012 onwards, when she replaced Lothar Bisky, a fellow German member of Die Linke party. Watch the video interview to find out more about her group’s political course and the appointment of the Commission president.

Talking about the appointment of the Commission president, Ms Zimmer said that the heads of government had tried to find an alternative to the five candidates, but that the time when they could simply ignore the Parliament was over. “One thing is for sure: if they now propose a Commission president candidate who isn’t among the five, then this candidate will not be approved by the EP,” she said.

Ms Zimmer was born in Berlin in 1955 and holds a degree in translation and interpreting. She was first elected to the European Parliament in 2004. In the last legislative term, she was a member of the development committee, a substitute member of the employment and social affairs committee and a member of the delegation to the Africa Caribbean Pacific-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.

Before the first plenary on 1 July, watch our interviews series with the heads of Parliament’s political groups in the 2014-2019 legislative term.