European Parliament to get its first Polish president

Europe News

Jul 14, 2009, 8:33 GMT

Strasbourg, France - The European Parliament was set to elect its first president from a former-Communist member state on Tuesday as its three largest groups formalized their support for Poland's former conservative premier Jerzy Buzek, 69. The move is highly symbolic, as it marks the first time that a citizen of one of the EU's new member states, which spent much of the 20th century behind the Iron Curtain, has been appointed to one of the bloc's permanent presidencies. The conservative, socialist and liberal blocs in the parliament, who together control 533 seats in the 736-seat legislature, 'have agreed that the European Parliament shall be chaired by Mr Jerzy Buzek ... for the first half of the 2009 - 2014 legislature,' the three groups' leaders said in a joint statement. Under a deal agreed after elections in early June, the presidency of the parliament will be handed to a member appointed by the socialist bloc at the end of 2011, the statement said. Buzek, a chemical engineer by training, headed Poland's centre-right government from 1997 to 2001, bringing in reforms to the pension, education and health systems. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2004 with a record number of votes. Members of the parliament (MEPs) were set to vote on his appointment as speaker later on Tuesday. His only opponent was Swedish ecologist Eva-Britt Svensson from a fringe left-wing group which holds just 35 seats, making the vote a formality.

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