Daniel Freund

Daniel Freund (born 14 October 1984) is a German politician who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament since July 2019. He is a member of Alliance 90/The Greens (German: Bündnis 90/Die Grünen or Grüne) at national level, and sits with the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance in the European Parliament.

Freund was born in Germany and earned an graduate degree in political science, economics, and law from Leipzig University, followed by a master's degree in public affairs from the Institute of Political Studies, Paris, during which he completed a study visit to the Elliott School of George Washington University. During his studies, Freund and his colleagues formed a European newspaper project called the European Daily, for which they were nominated for the European Charlemagne Youth Prize.

After working as an intern at both the Federal Foreign Office and the EU Delegation in Hong Kong, and as a consultant at Deloitte, Freund worked in the office of Member of the European Parliament Gerald Häfner in Brussels from 2013 to 2014.

In July 2014, Freund moved to the Transparency International office in Brussels, where he was responsible for combating corruption among EU institutions until May 2019 as "Head of Advocacy for EU Integrity". As part of his work with Transparency International, Freund was responsible for EU Integrity Watch (www.integritywatch.eu), as well as the work on legislative transparency, conflicts of interest, lobbying, revolving doors and the legislative footprint. He is a regular speaker at international conferences and frequently appears in the media.

Early beginnings

In 2005, Freund joined the Alliance 90/The Greens political party. From 2013 to 2019, he became active in the party's working group on European Affairs as a co-opted member and later as one of the committee's vice co-spokespersons.

Member of the European Parliament, 2019–present

During the party's federal congress in November 2018 in Leipzig, Freund was elected to the 20th position on the party's list for the European Parliament elections of 2019. His party, which is a member of the Greens / EFA Group, won 20.5% of the votes in the elections (21 of the 96 German mandates).

He is a member of the Committee on Budgetary Control and the Committee on Constitutional Affairs. In the Committee on Constitutional Affairs, he is the coordinator for the Greens/EFA group and a member of the Working Group on the Conference on the Future of Europe. He is also a substitute member of the Committee on Transport and Tourism.

In addition to his committee assignments, Freund is part of the Parliament's delegation to the EU-Montenegro Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee. He co-chairs the European Parliament Intergroup on Anti-Corruption (alongside Roberta Metsola) and is a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on LGBT Rights..

• danielfreund.eu, personal web as a member of the Greens/European Free Alliance (in German)
• Daniel Freund, Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance, Member, on the European Parliament's web europarl.europa.eu
• transparency.eu/author/daniel-freund Daniel Freund's page at transparency.eu
• @daniel_freund Daniel Freund on Twitter