Reinhard Bütikofer is one of the Co-Chairs of EGP, and MEP for the German Green party Bündnis 90 / Die Grünen. He also serves as the Chair of the European Parliament Delegation for Relations with China. He sits on the Committee on Foreign Affairs (AFET) and is a substitute member of the Committee on International Trade (INTA).

Mr. Bütikofer is a member of the General Assembly and of the Europe/Transatlantic advisory board of the Böll Foundation. He is a member of NABU, of the EFM board, of ver.di, of Deutsch-Israelische Gesellschaft, of the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum, and of DGAP. He is the Chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with the People’s Republic of China and a Member of the Delegation to the United States.

Before getting elected to the European Parliament in 2009, Mr. Bütikofer was the co-chair of the German Green Party Bündnis90 / Die Grünen (from 2002 until 2008). He was the party’s Secretary General from 1998 until 2002. Prior to that he served as the Chair of the Greens in the Federal State of Baden-Württemberg. From 1988 until 1996 he served as a Member of the Baden-Württemberg State Parliament.

His engagement with the German Greens began when he was elected as a member of the city council in Heidelberg in 1984.

Besides his positions in the party and parliament Mr. Bütikofer is a member of the advisory board of the American Jewish Committee’s Ramer Center in Berlin, the Europe/Transatlantic advisory board of the Heinrich Böll Foundation, and the German-Chinese Dialogue Forum.

Hans is the founder and Managing Partner of Vriens & Partners, the leading government affairs, public policy and political risk analysis firm around Southeast Asia. It is headquartered in Singapore and has more than 90 staff and 30 senior counselors around the region.

The firm has offices in Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, Myanmar, Thailand, Malaysia, The Philippines, and Cambodia.

Hans has lived and worked in Asia since 1990. He is a regular commentator on regional issues.

Prior to establishing V&P, Hans was Vice Chairman, Asia at APCO Worldwide. He set up and served as Managing Director of the Indonesia practice for six years. Prior to this he worked as a political economist at the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy in Hong Kong. Earlier he practiced law in the M&A practice at Clifford Chance and was the Asia correspondent for a leading Dutch financial and economic daily. In 1995, he was elected president of the Foreign Correspondents’ Club Hong Kong, then the largest in the world.

Hans serves on the Board of Trustees of the Foundation of UWCSEA. He was a founding member of the Europe ASEAN Business Alliance, Chairman of the Foundation Dutch Education at UWCSEA, board member of Eurocham, and founding chairman of DutchCham in SG.

Hans graduated from law school in civil and public law at Groningen University in the Netherlands. During his studies, he was a research assistant in European parliamentary history and public law. In 1982 he took a year off from his studies when he was elected Senatus Rector of the Student Union (VAP).

Hans studied at the Bologna Center of the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of the Johns Hopkins University. He also did stints at the Universities of Grenoble in France, and Krakow in Poland.

His family lived in Batavia, Semarang and on Biak off Papua in the Dutch East Indies for several generations until the handover of Papua in 1962. He is married to Katy le Blanc. They have two sons.