Dacian Ciolos was elected President of the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament (see EUROPE 12277/13) on Wednesday 19 June. He takes over from the Belgian, Guy Verhofstadt, (Open VLD), who had held the position since 2009.
A member of the 'Party of Freedom, Unity and Solidarity', a new party member of the Renew Europe group, Dacian Ciolos (Romania) received 65 votes compared to 41 for Sophie in't Veld (Netherlands) (D66). Over recent days, two presidential candidates, Nathalie Loiseau (France) (Renaissance) (see EUROPE 12274/33) and Fredrick Federley (Sweden) (Centerpartiet) (see EUROPE 12265/23) had withdrawn from the race. He was European Commissioner for Agriculture from 2010 to 2014, and this is Mr Dacian's first mandate as a member of the European Parliament.
Renew Europe also elected its first Vice-President, VVD member Malik Azmani (Netherlands), who was newly elected to the European Parliament, as well as six Vice-Presidents. These were the Katalin Cseh (Hungary) (Momentum) and Luis Garicano (Spain) (Ciudadanos) – also Vice-President of the European ALDE party – who were both members of ‘Team Europe’ during the election campaign, LibDem Martin Horwood (UK), Iskra Mihaylova (Bulgaria) (MRF), Frédérique Ries (Belgium) (MR) and Dominique Riquet (France) ((Renaissance).
As Ms Mihaylova, Ms Ries and Mr Riquet were already elected to the Parliament, the other Vice-Presidents will start their first term as MEPs on 2 July. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)