European Parliament Members choose their leaders
On 1 July, the Members of the European Parliament re-elected Martin Schulz (S&D) as President of the European Parliament for another two and a half year term. The 58-year old German MEP will lead Parliament until January 2017. He won 409 out of 612 valid votes cast in the first ballot. Mr Schulz is the first President in the history of the European Parliament to be re-elected for a second two and a half year term.
Mr Schulz sent a personalised video message to introduce the closing session of the Policy Conference “Cultural Heritage for Europe – Europe for Cultural Heritage” Europa Nostra organised in cooperation with Edificio at the Bibliothèque Solvay on 5 December 2013 to close its 50th Anniversary Year and as a contribution to the development of the EU Strategy for Cultural Heritage. In his speech, Mr Schulz stressed that “Our cultural heritage is part of our identities. The very word “heritage” implies a transmission from one generation to the next. It is a responsibility which we have towards our children. For every heritage monument, site, building or landscape left to ruin, we lose part of this identity. We forget where we have come from. And this is dangerous, today more than ever”.
On 3 July, MEPs elected the members of the 20 Parliamentary Committees, including the Committee on Culture and Education composed of 31 full members and 23 substitutes. Legislative work of the European Parliament is done in 20 standing committees and two sub-committees.
Parliamentary Committees convened on 7 July in Brussels to elect chairpersons and their deputies for next two and half years.
MEP Silvia Costa (S&D, Italy) was elected Chair of the Culture and Education Committee. Europa Nostra is looking forward to continue a fruitful collaboration with Ms Costa who was Rapporteur of the Creative Europe Programme and strongly supported the position of the cultural heritage within this programme.
Andrea Bocskor (EPP, Hungary), Mircea Diaconu (ALDE, Romania), Helga Trüpel (Greens/EFA, Germany) and Michaela Sojdrova (EPP, Czech Republic) were elected Vice-Chairs of the CULT Committee.
See the CULT Committee list here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/committees/en/cult/members.html#menuzone
See the list of all the Chairs and Vice-Chairs elected here:
