Constitutive plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, 14-16 July 2009

Published on Mon 13th Jul 2009

This week, MEPs will come together for our first plenary session in Strasbourg where we will first have to elect a new President of the House. The duties of the President are to preside over debates and activities of the European Parliament and to represent the House within the EU and at the international level. He or she also needs to sign most of the laws and the EU budget passed by Parliament. The President is elected for a two-and-a-half year term which means that there are usually two different presidents during each legislative period of the European Parliament. It looks as though the tradition of splitting the post of President between the conservative European People's Party (EPP) and the re-branded new socialist group Progressive Alliance of Socialist & Democrats (PASD) will continue as EPP and PASD have already agreed to support each other's candidates. For the first two-and-a-half years, the PASD has signalled support for Polish MEP Jerzy Buzek (EEP) as President. In return, the EPP will vote for the PASD candidate Martin Schulz (Germany) for the second two-and-a-half year term. Unfortunately, this leaves our liberal candidate Graham Watson (Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, ALDE) out of the race and he has resigned his candidature for the post. We will also finalise our membership and positions of the parliamentary committees in which most of the legislative work takes place. I am keen to continue my work in the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (ITRE) and in the Development Committee and hope my membership of these committees will be confirmed this week.