Profile of the leaders of Parliament's political groups

Lothar Bisky was born in 1941 in Zollbrück (now Korzybie, Poland) and grew up in West Germany before deciding to move to East Germany when he was 18 where he joined the ruling Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED).

After completing university he worked as an academic on film, media and communication.

After the fall of the Berlin wall he was elected to the East German Parliament. From 1993 he was chairman of the Party of Democratic Socialism (PDS), successor of the SED, which after a merger became in 2007 The Left (Die Linke).

Since 2007 he is the President of the European Left party. He is married and the father of three sons and was first elected to the EP in June 2009.