Meet Cem Özdemir, Germany’s first state premier with Turkish heritage

Özdemir, 60, has been a national figure for decades in Germany. He calls himself a “Swabian Anatolian”, a nod to the south-western state of Baden-Württemberg where he was born and raised and to origin place of his Turkish parents.

In Sunday’s election for Baden-Württemberg’s state parliament, Özdemir led the party in overcoming poll deficits against the centre-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Preliminary results early on election night put the Greens in first place with almost 32 percent of the vote, with the CDU trailing at around 30 percent or a little under.

That achievement caps a prominent political career which saw Özdemir become one of the first federal MPs with Turkish roots in 1994.

He was able to draw on his considerable name recognition in the Baden-Württemberg campaign, especially when compared to the CDU’s lead candidate, the relatively unknown 37-year-old Manuel Hagel.

He also had more experience of election campaigning, having run as the Greens’ lead candidate for the 2017 federal election, together with Katrin Goering-Eckardt.

Son of textile workerfrom Bad Urach

Özdemir was born the son of a textile worker and a seamstress in the small town of Bad Urach, some 50 kilometres south of Stuttgart, in December 1965.

His parents were part of the wave of “Gastarbeiter” or “guest workers” who provided much of the manpower for Germany’s post-war economic miracle, many of them from Turkey.

After a difficult start at school, Özdemir benefited from the support of teachers who encouraged him to pursue studies that led to a qualification as a youth worker and educator.

He took German nationality in 1983.

As well as serving as a federal MP, Özdemir sat in the European Parliament between 2004 and 2009.

He co-chaired the Greens at a federal level between 2008 and 2018 and was agriculture minister in the previous government of SPD chancellor Olaf Scholz.

Özdemir made much of his foreign policy expertise in the televised debates in the run-up to the Baden-Württemberg poll.

He argued that his experience and contacts could help the region — home to car industry stalwarts such as Porsche and Mercedes-Benz — weather US President Donald Trump’s tariff blitz.

Erdogan critic

Like the current state premier, fellow Green Winfried Kretschmann, Özdemir belongs the party’s more centrist “Realo” wing, as opposed to the left-wing “Fundis”.

He has distanced himself from some of the Greens’ stances at national level, calling for more flexibility in the transition away from combustion-engine vehicles.

He also criticized some of his party’s MEPs for voting against the EU-Mercosur free trade agreement, a deal particularly welcomed by German car manufacturers who hope to boost exports of their vehicles to South America.

And Özdemir has used his national profile to voice opposition to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

After Turkey’s May 2023 elections, Özdemir criticised Turkish voters in Germany who had backed Erdogan.

They would not “have to answer for the consequences of their choice” — unlike those in Turkey faced with “poverty and lack of freedom”, he said.

In 2016 Özdemir also initiated a resolution in the German parliament to “commemorate the Armenian genocide”, a label which Turkey rejects.

He was also a critic of Russian President Vladimir Putin, notably voicing criticism as early as summer 2021, even before the full-fledged war of aggression against Ukraine began in the spring of 2022.

Özdemir was married for twenty years to Pia Maria Castro, a journalist of Argentine origin, with whom he has two children.

They announced their separation in 2023.

During the campaign, and on Valentine’s Day to boot, Özdemir married for a second time, to Canadian lawyer Flavia Zaka.

With reporting by Paul Krantz.