X-Nico

29 unusual facts about European parliament


Alan Donnelly

Alan Donnelly (born 16 July 1957) is a British politician and former trade unionist from Jarrow who served as a Labour Member of the European Parliament and leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party.

Donnelly was first elected to the European Parliament in 1989, representing the Tyne and Wear constituency .

CDU/CSU

The CSU is only organised in the German state of Bavaria and only fields candidates in elections within Bavaria (in German Bundestag and European Parliament elections, it only runs for Bavarian mandates), while the CDU correspondingly has only subsidiaries outside of Bavaria and only runs in the other 15 states.

Coandă-1910

At the European Parliament, an exhibition commemorated the building and testing of the Coandă-1910.

Committee of Secretaries-General

Both De Winter and Leemans served as a senators for the centre-right Christian Social Party (PSC-CVP) and Leemans ended his career as President of the European Parliament.

Daniel L. Doctoroff

In the wake of the Libor scandal, Doctoroff told the European Parliament that Bloomberg LP could develop an alternative index called the Bloomberg Interbank Offered Rate that would address regulators’ concerns.

Dichloromethane

In the European Union, the European Parliament voted in 2009 to ban the use of DCM in paint-strippers for consumers and many professionals.

Educational policies and initiatives of the European Union

These programmes were adopted by the EU countries but with considerable support from the European Parliament which made budgets available even before the legal instruments had been adopted.

The programme had strong support both from the Council of Ministers and from the European Parliament.

Elections in Portugal

Also on a national level, Portugal elects 22 members of the European Parliament.

European Jewish Congress

On 25 January 2011 at the European Parliament in Brussels on the eve of the International Holocaust Remembrance Day there took place a commemoration meeting devoted to the memory of the Holocaust.

Gare de La Défense

Until May 2004, this part of La Défense hosted an information centre of the European Union managed by the European Parliament.

Gus Yatron

In 1973, Yatron traveled to Europe delivering a speech to the European Parliament in France, urging NATO countries to take more initiative in absorbing the costs of defending Europe.

Hawkenbury, Tunbridge Wells

Hawkenbury is part of the constituency of Tunbridge Wells at a national level, and South East England at a European level.

Hermann Kelly

Kelly is currently Director of Communications for the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European Parliament.

Inna Bohoslovska

On 9-10 April 2012 Bohoslovska visited Brussels with an official visit to the European Parliament as a representative of the temporary investigation commission of the Ukrainian parliament.

International Election Monitors Institute

The International Election Monitors Institute is an association of former Members of the United States Congress (Senate and House of Representatives), the Canadian Parliament and the European Parliament, "to provide former legislators as election observers to operate worldwide in collaboration with other democracy-building organizations".

Jarosław Wierczuk

He drove in German Formula Three, Italian Formula 3000 and Formula Nippon, but as he did not achieve any successes, he resolved to be a member of parliament and also run for European Parliament.

Jerusalem Institute of Justice

JIJ's current pro-Israel advocacy initiatives include presentations before the European Parliament regarding the ongoing financial aid going to the Palestinian Authority despite the fact that no significant human rights reforms have been made.

Lety concentration camp

Their efforts gained further attention by a resolution of the European Parliament in 2005 asking the Czech Government to remove the farm.

Magdalena Gaj

The team led by her negotiated with the European Parliament a compromise version of the first Radio Spectrum Policy Programme (RSPP) which harmonizes the frequencies in the 800 MHz band on the EU-wide scale for the purposes of electronic communications services and broadband Internet access.

Myroslava Gongadze

In 2001, the European Parliament resolved to convene an international committee to investigate the case.

Restaurants du Cœur

Coluche pleaded for the Restos' cause at the European Parliament in February 1986 after learning that surplus products cost more to store than to distribute for free to the poor; his plea was heard and the surplus was opened in 1987 to four organizations.

Sanna Trygg

In 2009, she was granted the Robert Schuman scholarship by the European Parliament.

Service de Protection des Hautes Personnalités

The SPHP also has a permanent office in Strasbourg; home to several European institutions, including the European Parliament.

The Parliament Magazine

In the last parliamentary session, more than 200 members of the European Parliament and 19 of the 27 European Commissioners wrote specifically for the magazine, providing in-depth policy coverage and analysis.

Ulrich Beck

On 15 September 2010 Beck supported the new initiative Spinelli Group in the European Parliament, which was founded to reinvigorate the effort to federalize the European Union (EU).

Union for Europe of the Nations–European Alliance

The group had clear parallels to the group of the regionalists in the European Parliament, as they needed to ally with non-regionalists in both cases in order to establish a political group which could gain recognition and funding from the official institutions.

Victor Safonkin

Victor's work has been highly acclaimed, and in 2005 he was invited to exhibit at the European Parliament in Brussels.


1999 in the European Union

14 January: The European Parliament votes to establish a 'Committee of Independent Experts' to review the issue of fraud in the European Commission (see Santer Commission).

Alexander Graf Lambsdorff

Alexander Sebastian Léonce von der Wenge Graf Lambsdorff (born on 5 November 1966 in Cologne) is a German politician and Member of the European Parliament with the Free Democratic Party of Germany, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs and the Delegation for relations with the People's Republic of China.

Alliance for an Open Europe

It was initiated by British Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Daniel Hannan, and its birth came in the midst of renewed questioning of the linkage between the centre-right European People's Party and the further-right eurosceptic European Democrats in the European Parliament.

Antoine Duquesne

Antoine Duquesne (3 February 1941 – 4 November 2010) was a Belgian politician and Member of the European Parliament for the French Community of Belgium with the MR/MCC/PRL, Member of the Bureau of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.

Avondale, Chicago

Former mayor of Warsaw and current Member of the European Parliament Paweł Piskorski while sampling the wares at Kurowski's, one of the numerous Polish delicatessens in the area, declared that the sausage shop's kielbasa was better than any he'd had in his own home city.

Barbara Weiler

Barbara Weiler (born on 17 September 1946 in Düsseldorf) is a German politician and Member of the European Parliament with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, part of the Socialist Group and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection.

Communist Party of National Liberation

The 3rd National Assembly of BNG, held in Carballiño (Ourense) in 1987, expelled PCLN on the grounds that the party had supported Herri Batasuna in elections to the European Parliament.

Corien Wortmann-Kool

She is a Member of the European Parliament and Vice President on Economic and Financial Affairs of the European People’s Party (EPP) Group.

Europe by Satellite

It is managed by the European Commission however it broadcasts images coming from all EU Institutions like the European Parliament, the European Council, the European Central Bank, the Committee of the Regions, the European Court of Justice.

Franziska Brantner

Franziska Katharina Brantner (born 24 August 1979, Lörrach) is a German member of the European Parliament (MEP).

Hans-Peter Mayer

Hans-Peter Mayer (born on 5 May 1944 in Riedlingen) is a German politician and Member of the European Parliament for Lower Saxony with the conservative Christian-Democratic Union, part of the European People's Party and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs and is a member of the ACP-EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly.

Holger Krahmer

Holger Krahmer (born on 16 October 1970 in Leipzig) is a German politician and Member of the European Parliament with the Free Democratic Party of Germany, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety.

István Pálfi

István Pálfi (23 September 1966, Berettyóújfalu - 15 July 2006, Berettyóújfalu) was a Hungarian politician and Member of the European Parliament with the Hungarian Civic Party, part of the European People's Party and sit on the European Parliament's Committee on Budgetary Control and its Committee on Regional Development.

Jaromír Kohlíček

Jaromír Kohlíček (born February 23, 1953 in Teplice) is a Czech inventor, economist, politician and Member of the European Parliament for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia; part of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left party group in the European Parliament.

Käte Strobel

She also served 27 February 1958 to 26 January 1967 in the European Parliament, where she became the leader of the Socialist Group from 1964 to 1967 (to this day, the only female leader other than Pauline Green) and from 1972 to 1978 in the city council of Nuremberg.

Kunskapskanalen

During the daytime, it will broadcast SVT Forum (previously known as 24 Direkt) which broadcasts seminars, debates and coverage of the Riksdag and the European Parliament.

League of Polish Families

Roman Giertych's father, Maciej Giertych, also a member of LPR, is a former member of the European Parliament.

Lyana Armstrong-Emery

She and her party strongly supported Gibraltarian representation in the Parliament at Westminster and in the European Parliament.

Maastricht Treaty

The first pillar was where the EU's supra-national institutions—the Commission, the European Parliament and the European Court of Justice—had the most power and influence.

Martin Callanan

He worked as a project engineer at Scottish and Newcastle breweries from 1986 to 1998, when he was elected to the European Parliament.

Miloslav Ransdorf

Miloslav Ransdorf (born 15 February 1953 in Rakovník) is a Czech politician and Member of the European Parliament for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia; part of the European United Left–Nordic Green Left party group in the European Parliament.

Nuala Ahern

Nuala Ahern (née MacDowell; born 5 February 1949 in Omeath, County Louth) is a former Irish Green Party member of the European Parliament representing Leinster in Ireland from 1994–2004.

Order and Justice

The party's two MEPs sit in the Europe of Freedom and Democracy group in the European Parliament, with the party having previously belonged in the now-defunct AEN.

Paul-Marie Coûteaux

Paul-Marie Coûteaux (born 31 July 1956 in Paris) is the son of André Couteaux and a French politician, writer, and former Member of the European Parliament for Ile-de-France with the Mouvement pour la France, Member of the Bureau of the Independence and Democracy and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Peter Šťastný

He joined the party SDKÚ-DS of the former Prime-minister Mikuláš Dzurinda to pursue a career in the European Parliament since he is fluent in both English and French.

Philippe Douste-Blazy

Member of the Centre of Social Democrats (CDS), the Christian Democrat component of the Union for French Democracy (UDF), he entered politics in March 1989, being elected mayor of Lourdes and then Member of the European Parliament in June of the same year.

Pietari Jääskeläinen

He became a member of Finnish Parliament in 2009 when Timo Soini was elected to the European Parliament.

Police and Judicial Co-operation in Criminal Matters

It was based more around intergovernmental cooperation than the other pillars meaning there was little input from the European Commission, European Parliament and the Court of Justice.

Prix Europa

Set up in 1987 by the Council of Europe and the European Cultural Foundation it now has the backing of around 25 partners, including institutions like the European Parliament, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European Alliance for Television and Culture and national broadcasters like Radio France, YLE Finnish Broadcasting, Telewizja Polska, Zweites Deutsches Fernsehen or Österreichischer Rundfunk.

Ralf Walter

Ralf Walter (born on 15 March 1958 in Andernach) is a German politician and Member of the European Parliament with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, part of the Socialist Group and is vice-chair of the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets.

San Glorio

The issue has been raised before the European Parliament, with Euro-MP David Hammerstein requesting the European Commission to look into the funding of the project, claiming that the regional government receives EU funding because of the park's required protection as a most seriously threatened habitat, while at the same time applying for subsidies for the jobs at the projected ski resort and hotel complex.

Struan Stevenson

He toured an exhibition of photographs taken in Semipalatinsk by his friend the actress and photographer Kimberley Joseph from the Scottish Parliament, to the European Parliament, the UK Department for International Development, the United Nations headquarters in New York and finally, to Almaty, Astana and Semipalatinsk itself in Kazakhstan.

Treaty of Nice

A 'Yes' vote was urged by a massive campaign by the main parties and by civil society and the social partners, including campaigning through canvassing and all forms of media by respected pro-European figures like then EP president Pat Cox, former Czech president Václav Havel, former President of Ireland Patrick Hillery and former Taoiseach (prime minister) Dr. Garret Fitzgerald.

Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler

Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler (born on 1 December 1950 in Augsburg) is a German politician and Member of the European Parliament with the Social Democratic Party of Germany, part of the Socialist Group and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on Foreign Affairs.

Xtralis

Xtralis smoke detectors and security systems have been installed in the European Parliament in Brussels, and corporate locations for Volkswagen and Renault.

Zbigniew Kuźmiuk

Zbigniew Krzysztof Kuźmiuk (born on 19 September 1956 in Komorowo) is a Polish politician and Member of the European Parliament for the Masovian Voivodship with the Polish People's Party, part of the European People's Party and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on Budgets.

Zbigniew Zaleski

Zbigniew Zaleski (born on 29 April 1947 in Rogoziniec) is a Polish politician and Member of the European Parliament for the Lublin Voivodship with the Civic Platform, part of the European People's Party and sits on the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade.