Since his entry into the
Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1975, Bullmann was mostly engaged with the Young Socialists branch until 1991. He was the chair of the Hesse regional association of the Young Socialists.
Member of the European Parliament, 1999–present In 1999 Bullmann was elected to the European Parliament. From 2003 to 2012, he served as deputy chair of the SPD group in the European Parliament, before taking on the role as its chair from 2012 to 2017. Bullmann's political work in that position focused on economics and employment, the
Lisbon Strategy, the European financial service sector, as well as development politics and regional policy. From 1999 to 2018, he was a member of the European Parliament's
Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. Between 1999 and 2014, he was also a member of
Joint Parliamentary Assembly of the EU and African, Caribbean and Pacific states and an alternate member of the
Committee on Employment and Social Affairs. In addition to his committee assignments, Bullmann serves as member of the European Parliament Intergroup on Trade Unions and the European Parliament Intergroup on
Western Sahara. In early 2014, the SPD chose Bullmann to be the party list’s number 3 for the
2014 European elections, following
Martin Schulz and
Birgit Sippel. He also led the German delegation within the S&D Group until 2018. In March 2018, the S&D Group chose Bullmann as their new leader; he received 86 votes, while his competitor
Kathleen Van Brempt got 61 votes. Following the poor performance of his own party in the
2019 elections, Bullmann decided not to run again for the leadership; instead, the position went to
Iratxe García. Bullmann subsequently became a member and S&D coordinator of the
Committee on Development. In 2020, he also joined the
Committee on International Trade. He is also a member in the
Delegation for relations with the countries of Central America and the
Delegation to the Euro-Latin American Parliamentary Assembly. In February 2023, Bullmann was elected chair of the
Subcommittee on Human Rights following the resignation of the subcommittee's previous chair Maria Arena in January 2023. In the European Parliament elections 2024 Bullmann was re-elected to the Parliament. He was listed on number 8 of his party's national voting list.
Role in national politics In the negotiations to form a
Grand Coalition of
Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (
CDU together with the Bavarian
CSU) and the SPD following the
2013 German elections, Bullmann was part of the SPD delegation in the working group on banking regulation and the Eurozone, led by
Herbert Reul and
Martin Schulz. He also participated in similar negotiations following the
2017 elections. In the negotiations to form a so-called
traffic light coalition of the SPD, the Green Party and the FDP following the
2021 federal elections, Bullmann led his party's delegation in the working group on European affairs; his co-chairs from the other parties are
Franziska Brantner and
Nicola Beer. ==Other activities==