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Ulrike Lunacek Ulrike Lunacek (1957) was born in Lower Austria and spent her childhood and youth there and in Vienna. She studied in Boone (Iowa, USA) and Vienna, and got an interpreter's degree English - Spanish - German at the University of Innsbruck (Austria) in 1983. Parallel to her studies she was co-founder of the first shelter for battered women and their children in Innsbruck, and worked there during the first year of its existence. Having returned to Vienna in 1983, she worked as a journalist, editor, interpreter and teacher in development education, feminist and LGBT NGO until 1995. That same yea, as member of the Greens, she ran for the first time for a seat in the Austrian parliament and was the first Austrian politician open about her (lesbian) sexual orientation. From 1992 to 1998 she was secretary general of the Austrian Green Party, then member of the Austrian parliament from 1999 to 2009, where she was spokeswoman on Foreign and Development Policy and on Equality for Lesbians, Gays and Transgender Persons. From 2006 till 2009 she was co-chair of the European Green Party Her specific work on foreign affairs, with conflict prevention and rights-based focus on human rights, women's rights, rights of ethnic and sexual minorities, has been at the core of het political work, even before she entered party politics, including the struggle for fair trade and socially and ecologically sustainable trade relations. Ulrike Lunacek is also rapporteur to the European parliament for Kosovo and co-president of the Intergroup of the European Parliament (i.e. a informal group of MEPs from different parties) on LGBT rights. Furthermore she is vice-chair of the Green Parliamentary Group in Austria. Ulrike Lunacek is well-known as a strong advocate of fundamental rights, of sexual and reproductive health and rights, and as a fighter against corruption, for rule of law and independent media, within the European or outside, especially in the Balkans. Her visibility as one of the few openly lesbian politicians in Europe, as co-chair of the LGBT Intergroup, has given both her and the Greens strong visibility and clout with and in all movements who struggle inside and outside the European Union, at Prides and other LGBT events. Ulrike Lunacek participated in the panel discussion on migration and safety at the Antwerp conference. |