Papadimoulis was born in 1955 in Athens. He attended the Varvakeio Junior High School of Athens and studied the School of Civil Engineering of the National Technical University of Athens. He is married to Nadia Soubasaki and has two children.[2]
Since 2014, he has again been an MEP.[1] Since 1 July 2014, he has been one of the simultaneous 14 Vice Presidents of the European Parliament.[1] Since 2014, Papadimoulis has been the only Greek Vice President of the European Parliament. According to the VoteWatch.EU, he is the most influential Greek MEP in the European Parliament. In the Parliamentary Evaluation Report on the term 2014–2019, published by "Vote Watch Europe", Dimitris Papadimoulis was evaluated as the Greek MEP with the greatest influence on the European Institutions.
In an earlier report by VoteWatch.EU, he was also one of the three most active MEPs in the entire European Parliament, for the period 2004–2009.
On 18 January 2022, he was re-elected as vice-president of the European Parliament for the fourth consecutive time, with the support of a broad cross-party majority and with a 74.77% share of the vote, garnering 492 positive votes out of a total of 658 valid ballots. Since 2014 he was the only Greek and the only representative from the GUE-NGL political group at the Presidium of the European Parliament.