In 1998, when MEP Nel van Dijk left the European Parliament to become chairperson of the Dutch Bureau against Age Discrimination, he suddenly became MEP. He became a member of the
Committee on Foreign Affairs, which he still is, member of the
Committee on Transport and Tourism, which he left after 1999 elections, member of the delegation for relations with Russia, which he also left after the elections, and substitute for the
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which he left after the 2004 elections. In
1999, he headed the GroenLinks electoral list for the European elections. He, and with him three other Dutch Greens, were elected into parliament. After the elections, he became chair of the delegation to the EU–Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee, which he still is, and thereby a member of the conference of Delegation leaders. He became also member for the delegation for relations with the Southeast European countries, which he left following the 2004 elections. In a controversial leadership election in 2004, fellow MEP
Kathalijne Buitenweg was elected to head the GroenLinks list in the European Elections instead of Lagendijk. After the
2004 elections he became a member of the
Subcommittee on Security and Defence, substitute for the
Committee on Transport and Tourism and member of the delegation for relations with the
Gulf States, including Yemen. He was chair of the Joint Parliamentary Committee with Turkey. Lagendijk has published two books on European foreign affairs, together with
Labour MEP
Jan Marinus Wiersma. In 2000 they published "Brussel - Warschau - Kiev. Op zoek naar de grenzen van de Europese Unie" ("Brussels-Warsaw-Kyiv, searching for the borders of the European Union") concerning
EU enlargement. In 2004 they published "Na Mars komt Venus. Een Europees antwoord op Bush" ("After Mars comes Venus. A European answer to Bush") concerning the EU's peace and
nation-building policy. As MEP Lagendijk has shown particular interest for the
Balkan-region and
Turkey, and especially in keeping the peace in this unstable region. His
pacifist background is clearly influential there. In December 2005, he visited Turkey to attend the trial against
Orhan Pamuk and speak at an event for the
Greens of Turkey. In his speech he criticized the
military of Turkey for using the violence by the
PKK as justification for violence against the
Kurdish population. He was then charged with
public denigration of the Turkish army. Lagendijk expected pressure by the
media in Turkey to force prosecutors to drop charges. Indeed, the prosecutor declined to prosecute, referring to the
Turkish constitution and the
European Convention on Human Rights, and the case was dropped. In 2009, Lagendijk left the European Parliament and moved to Istanbul. After briefly writing for the Radikal daily newspaper, Lagendijk started as a columnist for the Today's Zaman newspaper. From 2009 until 2012, he worked as a senior advisor for the Istanbul Policy Center of Sabancı University. Afterwards, he lectured at Süleyman Şah University, until it was closed by the Turkish authorities in the wake of the
2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt. ==Personal life==