European Parliament, 367 of newly elected MEPs are “freshmen” The re-elected European Parliament, whose composition was defined by the popular vote on 4-7 June, will meet for its first plenary session in its main seat in Strasbourg on 14-16 July. An informal ceremony for the leave-taking of the outgoing MEPs, roughly half the entire hemicycle, has been planned for the previous day. The re-elected MEPs number altogether 369, while the “freshmen” total 367 (even if for some countries the list of those elected is not yet official and some renunciations of a seat on the EP to be able to retain national institutional positions are possible). “Malta is the country that confirms most outgoing MEPs, namely 4 out of 5 – explains a press release of the EP -, while the most significant turnover is registered in Lithuania, where three-quarters of those elected are newcomers in Europe”. The Danish Emile Turunen, born in 1984, is at the age of 25 the youngest MEP; the oldest MEP, on the other hand, is the Italian Ciriaco De Mita, who is 81 years old and has already served as an MEP for two legislatures. It will therefore be De Mita, as the oldest MEP, who will have the honour of opening the session on 14 July, as established by the regulations of the European Parliament. According to the statistics reported in the EP press release, the percentage of women MEPs is increasing, with 35% women elected, in contrast to 31% in the former legislature. “It is little cause for surprise that Finland has elected the largest number of female MEPs: over 60%” of the Finnish contingent. “At the bottom of the classification is Malta, which is not sending even one woman MEP to Brussels”. The number of former premiers is also increasing in Strasbourg (a fact that is considered positive, in the sense of a growing interchange between EU institutions; this also goes for the passage from deputy to commissioner and vice versa): apart from De Mita, former premier of Italy, other premiers now sitting in the EP include the Polish Jerzy Buzek, one of the possible candidates of the European People’s Party for the post as President of the EP, and the former premiers of Latvia, Lithuania, Finland, Romania and Slovenia. Belgium is represented by two former heads of government: the Christian-Democrat Jean-Luc Dehaene and Guy Verhofstadt, elected head of the Liberal-Democratic group in the EP in recent days. EU Presidency: “Sweden accepts the challenge” Sweden, which has now assumed the rotating Presidency of the European Council, after the transfer of power between the Czech and Swedish governments on 30 June, is losing no time in getting down to business. On 1st July the Executive chaired by Swedish premier Fredrik Reinfeldt received a visit from the Commission in Stockholm to plan the agenda for the next six months. A first contact with the European Parliament will take place in Strasbourg from 14 to 16 July, though the order of the day for the work of the EP during its plenary will only be fixed on 9 July. “Sweden has inspired many of our European values, for example in terms of social rights, solidarity, human rights and transparency. I’m certain these principles will be the driving forces of our work during the next six months”, said José Manuel Barroso, President of the Commission, during his official visit to the Swedish capital. Barroso had a personal meeting with Premier Fredrik Reinfeldt, while the individual Commissioners had meetings with their counterparts in the Swedish cabinet to discuss the main problems of their separate portfolios (energy, economy, enlargement, security, intercultural exchange…). Barroso underlined the need to “reach new agreements on a global scale relating to the economic crisis and measures to combat climate change”. “These – said Reinfeldt – are the two priorities of the Swedish Presidency”, whose motto is “Sweden accepts the challenge”. Margot Wallstrom, Swedish Commissioner and Vice-President of the Executive in Brussels, explained for her part: “Holding the EU Presidency isn’t an easy task given that the institutional question”, i.e. the Lisbon Treaty, “has not yet been resolved. We need however to concentrate on the main issues, take things as they come, plan for the unforeseeable, be flexible and able to adapt to the various situations”.Fischer (Czech Republic) lists the successes of the last six months”The strength of the Presidency [of the EU Council] does not depend on the size of the country that holds it, but on its willingness to discuss and animate the debate of the European Union as a whole”, said Jan Fischer, Czech Premier, in relinquishing his six months’ term as President of the EU. He emphasized some aspects of the Czech semester that has just ended, and thanked his counterparts in the other 26 member countries, and also the Commission, for their collaboration, but failed to mention the European Parliament. The successes that the Czech semester achieved include, according to Fischer, the successful outcome of the summit of 18-19 June, which adopted the necessary “guarantees” for the holding of the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty, the agreement on measures to tackle the financial crisis, preparations for the Copenhagen summit on the environment and post-Kyoto, and Barroso’s candidature for a second term as head of the Commission.
