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Felix Reda

German researcher and politician (born 1986)

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Felix Reda (formerly Julia Reda; born 30 November 1986) is a German researcher, politician, and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Germany. He was a member of the Pirate Party Germany until 27 March 2019, part of The Greens-European Free Alliance. He has been vice-president of the Greens/EFA group since 2014. He was also previously the president of Young Pirates of Europe. After the 2019 European Parliament election, Reda was succeeded by Patrick Breyer (Pirate Party Germany), Marcel Kolaja, Markéta Gregorová, and Mikuláš Peksa (Czech Pirate Party).

In 2019, Reda became a fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard. In 2020, he began working for the Gesellschaft für Freiheitsrechte (GFF, 'Society for Civil Rights'), as expert for copyright and freedom of communication.

Since March 2024, Reda works for Microsoft GitHub.

01Political career

Reda became a member of the centre-left Social Democratic Party of Germany when he was 16 years old. He studied politics and publicity sciences at the University of Mainz. In 2009, Reda started to become active for the national Pirate Party and from 2010 to 2012 he was chairperson of the Young Pirates (Junge Piraten). In 2013, he was one of the co-founders of the Young Pirates of Europe. In January 2014, he was chosen to top the list of the candidates for the European Elections for the Pirate Party Germany, who subsequently won one seat.

In the European Parliament, Reda joined the Greens/EFA group. He was a member of the Legal Affairs committee as well as a substitute member of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and Petitions committees. He was on the Steering Committee of the Digital Agenda intergroup, a forum of MEPs interested in digital issues.

On 27 March 2019, he announced in an online video that he had left the Pirate Party, protesting the fact that his former employee Gilles Bordelais, (whom he had previously championed as a suitable lead candidate for the party), had not voluntarily resigned as a candidate in the European elections while being under investigation for sexual harassment.

MEP Reda at informal meeting in Washington, DC, concerning copyright issues in the United States (2015)
MEP Reda at informal meeting in Washington, DC, concerning copyright issues in the United States (2015)

03Personal life

On 26 January 2022, Reda announced that he is transgender and now uses the first name Felix.

Watch videos about Felix RedaExplainers and documentaries on YouTube (opens in a new tab)

Sources and credits

This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article Felix Reda, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.

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