#EUNews special - Let’s talk about who the lead candidates are 🔊 Happy election year, let’s meet the proposed faces of the party campaigns
📌#EPP: Manfred Weber for the European People’s Party👨💼📘❗
📌#PES: Frans Timmermans for the Party of European Socialists👨💼📕❗
📌#ACRE: Jan Zahardil for the Reformists Alliance of Europe👨💼📓❗
📌#EGP: double-lead with Ska Keller & Bas Eickhout for the European Green Party👩💼👨💼📗❗
📌#ALDE: a possible team of nine for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe9️⃣📒⁉️
📌#GUE/NGL & #EFDD: far-left and far-right have not announced candidates yet🤷📙❓
🔜 #tbt: EP and Eurovision signed partnership for European elections in June 2018 🤝👥🎬
#EPP: Manfred Weber for the European People’s Party👨💼📘❗
➡️Manfred Weber (CSU, Germany), 46, holds a degree in physical engineering from Munich University of Applied Sciences. He started his political career in the regional Parliament and was elected to the European Parliament in 2004. With three terms in the European Parliament and currently serving as the chairman of the EPP group, his experience in European politics is quite vast. Weber’s political agenda is focused on stronger external border control, stopping illegal immigration and reconnecting Europe with the people.
🔜He is well known for his support for free interrail tickets for 18-year-old Europeans, and his non-confrontational position when it comes to Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, whose party forms part of the EPP group.
#PES: Frans Timmermans for the Party of European Socialists👨💼📕❗
➡️Frans Timmermans (PvdA, Netherlands), 57, holds a degree in French language and literature from Raboud University. Starting his political career in the second chamber of the Dutch Parliament in 1998, he currently serves as First Vice-President of the European Commission. Besides his acclaimed public speaking skills, he is also fluent in seven languages and a supporter of welfare.
🔜Mr Timmermans has been titled a champion of the rule of law and defender of the four freedoms by many.
#ACRE: Jan Zahardil for the Reformists Alliance of Europe👨💼📓❗
➡️Jan Zahardil (CDS, Czech Republic), 55, is a researcher by profession, holding an engineering degree from the University of Chemistry and Technology in Prague. He has been a member of the European Parliament since 2004 and serves as the President of ACRE. In 1998, he began his political career as a member of the Czech Parliament. Mr Zahradil is a strong advocate for the Visegrad group as well as supporter of a multi-speed Union, with freedom for member states to pursue their own agenda when it comes to foreign policy. His priorities in this race revolve around a review of the EU’s legislative body, establishing the EU in global trade and adjusting EU spending on external border protection.
#EGP: double-lead with Ska Keller & Bas Eickhout for the European Green Party👩💼👨💼📗❗
➡️ Ska Keller (Bündnis 90/Die Grünen, Germany), 37, studied Islamic Studies, Turkology and Jewish Studies at the Free University Berlin and the Sabanci Üniversitesi Istanbul. She is the co-chair of the Greens group. Elected to the European Parliament for the first time in 2009, she ran as the EGP lead candidate in the 2014 European elections campaign as well. Before joining the EP, she also held various leadership positions in her national party. Her political agenda is focussed on fighting populism, promoting ecological measures, a minimum social standard in all EU countries and defending the fundamental European values.
Bas Eickhout (GroenLinks, Netherlands), 42, studied Chemistry and Environmental Science at the Radboud University in Nijmegen. He later became a researcher at the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency. His experience thus lies within environmental policy. He has been a member of the European Parliament since 2009 and identifies improving the green economy and reforming the European social agenda as his top priorities.
🔜Eickhout has a reputation of being a technocrat more than a politicians for co-authoring the GroenLinks election programme for the European elections in 2004, 2009 and 2014, as well as the Dutch elections in 2010 and 2012.
#ALDE: a possible team of nine for the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe9️⃣📒⁉️
➡️Though ALDE ran with their group leader Guy Verhofstadt in the 2014 elections, they want to make further changes to the system, announcing their plans to designate an entire team of liberal leaders of up to 9 people to campaign in the European elections. According to Verhofstadt, Emanuel Marcons’ ‘En Marche’-movement inspired the idea and forms a significant part in carrying it out.
🔜The team is planned to be endorsed at an electoral congress in early 2019.
#GUE/NGL & #EFDD: far-left and far-right have not announced candidates yet🤷📙❓
➡️ Other groups which are currently occupying seats in the European Parliament, but from which no official announcements have been made yet, are the European United Left–Nordic Green Left (GUE/NGL) and Europe of Freedom and Direct Democracy (EFDD).
#tbt: EP and Eurovision signed partnership for European elections in June 2018 🤝👥🎬
🔜European Parliament the European Broadcasting Union signed an agreement to ensure wide coverage of the European Elections. The deal also includes the organisation of a debate between the lead candidates. They will present and debate their political programmes for the future of Europe during the election campaign in 2019.
🔥 If you want to know more about the lead candidates, we suggest the European Parliament's press service http://