Marina Yannakoudakis | |
---|---|
![]() | |
Member of the European Parliament for London | |
In office 4 June 2009 –2 July 2014 | |
Preceded by | John Bowis |
Succeeded by | Lucy Anderson |
Personal details | |
Born | Paddington,London,England,United Kingdom | 16 April 1956
Political party | Conservative |
Spouse | Zacharias Yannakoudakis |
Alma mater | Brunel University Open University |
Website | Official website |
Marina Yannakoudakis (born 16 April 1956) is a member of the European Economic and Social Committee and a former Conservative Member of the European Parliament for London. She was elected at the 2009 European Parliament election. She lost her seat at the 2014 election.
Yannakoudakis was born in Paddington. She studied for a BSc in government,politics and modern history at Brunel University,where she was chairman of the Conservative students,and also received an MA in education from the Open University.
She was a member of Barnet London Borough Council for Oakleigh Park Ward from 2006 to 2010 where she was chair of the Cleaner,Greener,Transport and Development Overview &Scrutiny Committee.
She was a full member of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality,the Committee on the Environment,Public Health and Food Safety and a substitute member of the Special Committee on Organised Crime,Corruption and Money Laundering. She was a member of the Delegation to the EU-Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Joint Parliamentary Committee. [1]
She was also a member of the High-Level Contact Group for relations with the Turkish Cypriot community in the northern part of the island and was the Conservative and the European Conservatives and Reformists spokesman on Women's Rights and Gender Equality.
Yannakoudakis campaigned against EU plans to give women 20 weeks maternity leave on full pay. She led calls in the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality for an impact assessment of the legislation to be conducted which resulted in the proposals being shelved. [2] She has also spoken out against EU proposals to have a quota for women on boardrooms,where she described the proposals as "patronising".> [3]
She pushed for a redress to the Test Achats vs Council of Ministers case,a European Court of Justice ruling which determined it was illegal for insurance companies to discriminate on the basis of gender in the European Union. [4]
Yannakoudakis also worked on issues related to women and entrepreneurship [5] and child protection. [6]
Yannakoudakis led a campaign in the European Parliament against female genital mutilation. [7]
In the Committee on the Environment,Public Health and Food Safety she concentrated on public health issues,where she spoke out on the need for stricter rules for EU doctors [8] as well as ensuring that MRI scanner rules are not over-regulated by EU law. [9] She drafted the committee's report on the voluntary donation of tissues and cells which called for more donations of cord blood for stem cell transplants. [10] She is the committee's contact point for the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control.
Yannakoudakis led a campaign to ensure that EU rules do not make it more difficult for electronic cigarette users to access e-cigs. [11]
Yannakoudakis worked to support efforts to find people who went missing during the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and Cypriot intercommunal violence. [12] She was a member of the European Parliament Intergroup on LGBT Rights. [13] She has campaigned for the decriminalisation of homosexuality in Northern Cyprus. [14] She met and received assurances from Turkish Cypriot leader Dr. DervişEroğlu that he would sign a repeal of the gay ban into law [15] and by putting pressure on the authorities in the north she was instrumental in overturning the anti-gay law. [16] [17]
She supported LGBT rights by co-authoring a resolution on LGBT rights in Africa especially the protection of lesbians [18] and called on the EU to suspend its aid to Uganda in light of the Uganda Anti-Homosexuality Bill. [19]
Yannakoudakis was strongly opposed to the introduction of a European Union financial transaction tax [20] [21] [22] which she believed would have an adverse effect on the City of London. She has also campaigned to protect companies in her constituency threatened by EU rules including Prudential plc. [23] She led a cross-party multi-national campaign to secure a level playing field for sugar cane refiners,including London's Tate &Lyle where jobs are under threat. [24] [25] [26] [27]
She led campaigns to seek savings in the EU budget. She raised concerns about spending on EU orchestras [28] and has called for cuts to be made to the European Personnel Selection Office. [29] and the Agencies of the European Union. [30] [31] She criticised the EU spending €2 million a year on Europe Day. [32]
Yannakoudakis made a number of comments on the enlargement of the EU. She voted against the accession of Iceland to the European Union [33] [34] citing the ongoing Icesave dispute as an obstacle to EU membership. Yannakoudakis called for Iceland to fully compensate all UK depositors,especially the London councils which had invested surplus money. She also opposed a European Parliament report recommending the accession of Turkey to the European Union [35] citing concerns about Ankara's failure to fully respect women's and minority rights,especially Kurds in Turkey. She also criticised Turkey's refusal to work with the 2012 Cypriot Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
She married her Greek-born husband,Zacharias Yannakoudakis,in 1983. She was finance director of the company that they founded and ran together until her election;the couple has three children. The family lives in Barnet.
A member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament.
Roger Helmer is a British politician and businessman. He was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the East Midlands region from 1999 to 2017. Before becoming an MEP,he was a business executive.
Turkey is negotiating its accession to the European Union (EU) as a member state,following its application to become a full member of the European Economic Community (EEC),the predecessor of the EU,on 14 April 1987.
Mairead McGuinness is an Irish politician serving as the European Commissioner for Financial Stability,Financial Services and the Capital Markets Union since October 2020. A member of Fine Gael,she previously served as First Vice-President of the European Parliament from 2017 to 2020. She served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for East from 2004 to 2014 and for Midlands–North-West from 2014 to 2020,making her Ireland's longest serving MEP. In the European Parliament,she sat with the European People's Party (EPP).
Emine Bozkurt is a Dutch politician of Turkish descent and Member of the European Parliament between 2004 and 2014. She is a member of the Dutch Labour Party,which is part of the Party of European Socialists.
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.
Dame Glenis Willmott,is a retired British Labour Party politician who served as leader of the European Parliamentary Labour Party (EPLP) and Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands.
The 2009 European Parliament election was held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009. A total of 736 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent some 500 million Europeans,making these the biggest trans-national elections in history. An additional 18 observers were pre-elected.
Marta Andreasen is an Argentine-born Spanish accountant. She was employed in January 2002 by the European Commission as Chief Accountant,and raised concerns about flaws in the commission's accounting system which she felt left it vulnerable to potential fraud. Elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the UK Independence Party (UKIP) in the 2009 election,she defected to the Conservative Party in February 2013. She lost her seat in the 2014 European Parliamentary election.
The seven institutions of the European Union (EU) are seated in four different cities,which are Brussels (Belgium),Frankfurt am Main (Germany),Luxembourg (Luxembourg) and Strasbourg (France),rather than being concentrated in a single capital city. All four were chosen,among various reasons,for their location halfway between France and Germany,the countries whose rivalry led to two World Wars and whose reconciliation paved the way for European integration. The EU agencies and other bodies are located all across the union,but usually not fixed in the treaties. The Hague is the only exception,as the fixed seat of the Agency for Law Enforcement Cooperation (Europol). Luxembourg City is the EU capital that can lay claim to having the most of the seven EU institutions based wholly or partly upon its territory,with only the European Council and European Central Bank not having a presence in the city. Over the years,Brussels has become the EU's political hub,with the College of the Commissioners –the European Commission's politically accountable executive –and the European Council both meeting at their Brussels-based headquarters,and the European Parliament and Council of the EU holding the majority of their meetings annually within the city. This has led media to describe it as the de facto "capital of the EU".
Nicole Sinclaire is a British former politician who was leader of the We Demand a Referendum Party,and served as a Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands from 2009 to 2014.
Jacqueline Kay Swinburne,Baroness Swinburne is a British politician and life peer. She was a member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Wales between 2009 and 2019,representing the Conservative Party,and became a member of the House of Lords in 2023. She was appointed Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Housing and Communities from 1 March 2024 for Baroness Penn as a Minister on Leave.
Lesbian,gay,bisexual,and transgender (LGBT) persons in TRNC (Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus) face legal challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Same-sex sexual activity has been legal in Northern Cyprus since 7 February 2014. Previous laws allowed three years prison sentences,according to Articles 171 and 173 of its criminal code. Female homosexuality was not criminalised. Arrests for homosexuality have occurred as recently as 2011.
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.
Edward McMillan-Scott is a British politician. He was a pro-EU Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Yorkshire and the Humber constituency from 1984 until 2014. He was the last and one of the longest-serving UK Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament 2004–2014. He held its Human Rights and Democracy portfolio. In 1992 he founded the EU's Instrument for Human Rights and Democracy (EIDHR) - now the EU's Global Europe Human Rights &Democracy Programme,which remain's the world's largest dedicated programme.
Queer Cyprus Association is an LGBTQ rights organisation in Northern Cyprus aimed to deal with criminal law amendments of TRNC which criminalises same-sex relationships. They seek equal human rights including to "fully decriminalize homosexuality,equalize the age of consent and better protect LGBTQ people under the law.”
The 2014 European Parliament election was the United Kingdom's component of the 2014 European Parliament election,held on Thursday 22 May 2014,coinciding with the 2014 local elections in England and Northern Ireland. In total,73 Members of the European Parliament were elected from the United Kingdom using proportional representation. England,Scotland and Wales use a closed-list party list system of PR,while Northern Ireland used the single transferable vote (STV).
Angelika Werthmann is a Member of the European Parliament since 2009,representing Hans-Peter Martin's List in Austria. Between 4 July 2012 and 7 April 2014 she was a member of the Liberal Group in the European Parliament.
Ian James Duncan,Baron Duncan of Springbank is a Scottish politician serving as a deputy speaker in the House of Lords. A member of the Conservative Party,he was formerly Minister for Climate Change in the Department for Business,Energy and Industrial Strategy and minister in the Northern Ireland Office. He initially joined the UK Government as a Scotland Office minister following the 2017 UK general election. Duncan was a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for Scotland from 2014 to 2017. He is the only minister to have served in each of the UK Government's territorial offices.
Marlene Lenz is a German Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU) politician and translator who served four terms as a Member of the European Parliament in the European Parliament from 1979 to 1999. She worked for the French Europa League,the German Atlantic Society,the European Economic Community's European Commission and was secretary-general and later vice-president of the European Union of Women. Lenz was also involved in local politics for the CDU in Bonn.