The European Parliament (EP) is one of the legislative bodies of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union, it adopts European legislation, following a proposal by the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 705 members (MEPs). It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world, with an electorate of 375 million eligible voters in 2009.
The Reformist Movement is a liberal French-speaking political party in Belgium. MR is traditionally a conservative-liberal party, but it also contains social-liberal factions.
Karel Lodewijk Georgette Emmerence De Gucht is a Belgian politician who was the European Commissioner for Trade from February 2010 until 31 October 2014. Previously, he served as Belgium's Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2004 to 2009 and as the European Commissioner for International Cooperation, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Response from 2009 to 2010.
Andreas Schwab is a German politician and member of the European Parliament for Germany. He is a member of the Christian Democratic Union, part of the European People's Party. Since 2009, he has been Of Counsel with CMS Hasche Sigle.
Anna Cecilia Malmström is a Swedish politician who served as European Commissioner for Trade from 2014 to 2019. She previously served as European Commissioner for Home Affairs from 2010 to 2014 and Minister for European Union Affairs from 2006 to 2010. She was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from Sweden from 1999 to 2006.
Jules Maaten is a Dutch politician and since August 2022 Regional Director of the European Dialogue office in Brussels of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom (FNF). Prior to that he was FNF Head of International Regions at the Headquarters in Potsdam (2020-2022), FNF Regional Director for sub-Sahara Africa, based in Johannesburg (2016-2020) and FNF country director in the Philippines (2010-2016), supporting projects for good governance, human rights, free trade and introduced the annual Africa Freedom Prize and in Manila the "It's All About Freedom"-project that includes an annual Freedom Run against corruption.
The Energy Community, commonly referred to as the Energy Community for South East Europe (ECSEE), is an international organization consisting of the European Union (EU) and a number of non-EU countries. It aims to extend the EU internal energy market to wider Southeast Europe. The members commit to implement relevant EU energy acquis communautaire, to develop an adequate regulatory framework and to liberalize their energy markets in line with the acquis under the founding Treaty.
Srđan Cvijić is a Serbian political scientist who is a senior policy analyst on European Union external relations. Cvijić is the Senior Policy Analyst at the Open Society Foundations in Brussels and member of the Balkans in Europe Policy Advisory Group. He is an expert in the area of democratisation, public and international law and human rights law. Prior to working for the Open Society, Cvijić was employed at the European Policy Centre, the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the Stability Pact for Southeastern Europe, and in the area of diplomacy for Serbia. He received his LLB from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law, M.A. in International Relations and European Studies from Central European University and PhD from the Law Department of the European University Institute. He is a regular contributor to news sources, including Politico, EUobserver, the European Western Balkans as well as a commentator for Euronews, Radio Free Europe, Voice of America and others.
European Business Summit (EBS) is an events and conference organiser, and the creator of one of the largest networking and debating events in Brussels – the annual European Business Summit.
The European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) is a soft Eurosceptic, anti-federalist political group of the European Parliament. The ECR is the parliamentary group of the European Conservatives and Reformists Party European political party (formerly known as the Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe or Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, but also includes MEPs from four other European parties and thirteen MEPs without European party affiliation.
Maria Renske "Marietje" Schaake is a Dutch politician who served as Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from the Netherlands between 2009 and 2019. She is a member of Democrats 66, part of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party.
The European Conservatives and Reformists Party, formerly known as Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR) (2009–2016) and Alliance of Conservatives and Reformists in Europe (ACRE) (2016–2019), is a conservative, soft Eurosceptic European political party with a main focus on reforming the European Union (EU) on the basis of Eurorealism, as opposed to total rejection of the EU (anti-EU-ism).
Bernd Lange is a German politician who has been serving as a member of the European Parliament from Germany. He is a member of the Social Democratic Party, part of the Party of European Socialists.
The Parliament Magazine is a monthly EU politics, policy and culture magazine. Its website, www.theparliamentmagazine.eu, is a forum for discussion on the latest developments in EU politics and policy, featuring regular contributions from prominent European policymakers, the magazine's editorial team and freelance journalists.
New Direction – The Foundation for European Reform is a political foundation at European level, think tank and publisher affiliated with the European Conservatives and Reformists Party (ECR). It was established in 2010, under the patronage of Baroness Thatcher. It is based in Brussels with satellite offices in London and Warsaw. New Direction is a free-market think tank that promotes European reform through the strengthening of accountability, transparency and democracy.
The European Ideas Network is an open centre-right think tank sponsored by the EPP Group and based in the European Parliament in Brussels. The EIN works as a pan-European policy framework designed to promote new thinking on the key challenges facing the countries of the European Union. With an active membership of around 3,000 policy-makers and opinion-shapers across the European Union, the EIN brings together foremost MEPs - as these represent the views of the European population, and then politicians, who coming from EU member states are confirmed to be democratically elected, hereafter businessman, academics, policy advisers, think-tankers, journalists and representatives of civil society who share a common outlook Europe-wide, as well as non-party experts and commentators interested in public issues being addressed.
The Wilfried Martens Centre for European Studies, also known as the Martens Centre and previously as the Centre for European Studies, is a think tank and political foundation of the European People's Party (EPP). The Martens Centre links together a large network of political foundations across the European Union, which all hold centre-right positions and seek to advance those points of view in Europe and beyond. The president of the Martens Centre is former Slovak prime minister Mikuláš Dzurinda.
Morten Helveg Petersen is a Danish politician who has been serving as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) since 2014. He is a member of the Danish Social Liberal Party, which is affiliated to the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party, and sits in the Renew Europe group in the European Parliament. He was elected to the European Parliament in 2014 and 2019 and served as member of the Folketing 1998–2009.
Michiel Frans van Hulten is Director of Transparency International EU and a former Dutch politician. He was a Member of the European Parliament (1999–2004) and was chairman of the Labour Party from December 2005 until April 2007.
Eva Maydell is a Bulgarian politician. She is a member of the European Parliament and President of the European Movement International.
