Evelyne Gebhardt

Evelyne Gebhardt MEP
Member of the European Parliament
In office 1 July 1994 – 1 February 2022
Succeeded by	René Repasi
Constituency	Germany
Personal details
Born	(1954-01-19) 19 January 1954 (age 70) Paris, France
Political party	German: Social Democratic Party  EU: Party of European Socialists
Alma mater	Paris Diderot University
Website	www.evelyne-gebhardt.eu

Evelyne Gebhardt (born 19 January 1954) is a German politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 1994 to 2022. She is a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, part of the Party of European Socialists.

Her main interests are bio-ethics, consumer protection and citizens' rights.

Early life and education

Gebhardt was born in a suburb of Paris. Her father was an industrial chimney sweeper and her mother worked as a translator for Kodak.^[1]

After graduating from Lycée Lamartine in 1972, Gebhardt became the first in her family to go to university. She studied at the University Paris Diderot, the University of Tübingen and the University of Stuttgart, studying linguistics, political science and political economy. She subsequently worked as a freelance translator, and moved to Germany in 1975. Since 1992 she has been Chair of the Working Group of Social-Democratic Women. After working in local politics with the SPD, she took out German nationality in 1993, which allowed her to stand for elected office.^[2]

In 1999, Gebhardt was awarded the Federal Cross of Merit (with ribbon).

Member of the European Parliament, 1994–2022

In parliament, Gebhardt was a member of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and of the parliament’s delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China. She was also a substitute member for the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Delegation for relations with the Korean Peninsula. In addition, she was a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on the Western Sahara^[3] and of the European Parliament Intergroup on LGBT Rights.^[4]

Gebhardt is best known for her role in shaping the controversial Services Directive in 2005 and 2006. The directive had aimed at opening up the European Single Market to competition amongst service providers but was, after much political pressure from mostly western and southern EU countries, subsequently watered down by the European Parliament. Gebhardt was parliamentary rapporteur for the directive and played an important role in facilitating an agreement with the European People's Party which allowed Parliament to pass the directive with a huge majority and thereby forcing EU governments to follow their line.

Along with Kaja Kallas, Gebhardt served as rapporteur for the digital single market in 2016.^[5]

From 2017 to 2019, Gebhardt served as one of the fourteen vice-presidents of the European Parliament under the leadership of Antonio Tajani.^[6]

In November 2021, Gebhardt announced that she would resign from the European Parliament by February 2022.^[7][8]

Other activities

• Europa-Union Deutschland, Member of the Presidium
• German Academy for Ethics in Medicine (AEM), Member
• Association of Free Art Schools in Baden-Württemberg, Member of the Board of Trustees
• Europa Zentrum Baden-Württemberg, Member of the Advisory Board
• Gegen Vergessen – Für Demokratie, Member
• Marie-Schlei-Verein, Member
• German United Services Trade Union (ver.di), Member

References

External links

• Media related to Evelyne Gebhardt at Wikimedia Commons
• Evelyne Gebhardt's Europarl profile

• v
• t
• e

German members of the European Parliament (1994–1999)

Social Democratic Party

• Gerhard Botz
• Dietrich Elchlepp (from 6 February 1996)
• Evelyne Gebhardt
• Norbert Glante
• Willi Görlach
• Lissy Gröner
• Klaus Hänsch
• Jutta Haug
• Magdalene Hoff
• Karin Jöns
• Karin Junker
• Heinz Kindermann
• Constanze Krehl
• Wilfried Kuckelkorn
• Annemarie Kuhn
• Helmut Kuhne
• Bernd Lange
• Rolf Linkohr
• Günter Lüttge
• Erika Mann
• Helwin Peter
• Willi Piecyk
• Christa Randzio-Plath
• Bernhard Rapkay
• Klaus Rehder
• Dagmar Roth-Behrendt
• Mechtild Rothe
• Willi Rothley
• Jannis Sakellariou
• Heinke Salisch (until 1 February 1996)
• Detlev Samland
• Axel Schäfer
• Gerhard Schmid
• Barbara Schmidbauer
• Martin Schulz
• Ulrich Stockmann
• Christof Tannert
• Ralf Walter
• Barbara Weiler
• Rosemarie Wemheuer
• Wilmya Zimmermann

Christian Democratic Union

• Siegbert Alber (until October 6 1997)
• Otto Bardong
• Rolf Berend
• Reimer Böge
• Elmar Brok
• Karl-Heinz Florenz
• Honor Funk
• Michael Gahler (from 23 April 1999)
• Anne-Karin Glase
• Lutz Goepel
• Alfred Gomolka
• Renate Heinisch
• Karsten Friedrich Hoppenstedt
• Georg Jarzembowski
• Hedwig Keppelhoff-Wiechert
• Peter Kittelmann
• Christa Klaß
• Dieter-Lebrecht Koch
• Christoph Werner Konrad
• Werner Langen
• Brigitte Langenhagen
• Klaus-Heiner Lehne
• Marlene Lenz
• Peter Liese
• Kurt Malangré
• Thomas Mann
• Winfried Menrad
• Peter Mombaur
• Marlies Mosiek-Urbahn (until 22 April 1999)
• Hartmut Nassauer
• Doris Pack
• Hans-Gert Pöttering
• Godelieve Quisthoudt-Rowohl
• Günter Rinsche
• Horst Schnellhardt
• Jürgen Schröder
• Konrad Schwaiger
• Diemut Theato
• Stanislaw Tillich
• Rainer Wieland (from 10 October 1997)
• Karl von Wogau

Alliance 90/The Greens

• Friedrich-Wilhelm Graefe zu Baringdorf
• Undine von Blottnitz
• Hiltrud Breyer
• Ozan Ceyhun (from 23 November 1998)
• Daniel Cohn-Bendit
• Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler
• Edith Müller
• Claudia Roth (until 18 November 1998)
• Elisabeth Schroedter
• Irene Soltwedel-Schäfer
• Wilfried Telkämper
• Wolfgang Ullmann
• Frieder Otto Wolf

Christian Social Union in Bavaria

• Markus Ferber
• Ingo Friedrich
• Maren Günther
• Otto von Habsburg
• Xaver Mayer
• Bernd Posselt
• Edgar Schiedermeier
• Ursula Schleicher