Meet Martin Schulz, the EU`s next parliamentary president
Baku, January 17 (AZERTAC). German Social Democrat Martin Schulz has been voted in as the next president of the European Parliament. Recent campaigning shows Schulz plans to make plenty of changes in his 30-month term, Deutsche Welle reports.
Martin Schulz was chosen to become the president of the European Parliament in the body`s first round of voting on Tuesday.
In the lead-up to the election, Schulz told his fellow Members of European Parliament (MEPs) that, if elected, he would make the role more political than it has been in the past.
The Social Democrat said that in addition to representing the European Parliament in public, he would strengthen the body by actively communicating the concerns of MEPs to the European Commission, the Council of Ministers - comprised of government officials from member states - as well as national leaders themselves.
As president of the European Parliament, Schulz will preside over plenary sessions and set the daily agenda in consultation with the leaders of the parliamentary factions. He will also sign regulations and directives together with the chairman of the Council of the European Union while overseeing the parliament`s administration and budget.
Schulz has vowed to defend the powers of the parliament and reduce the union`s "democratic deficit".
"The European Parliament is the only directly elected institution in the European Union," he said in a recent newspaper interview. "From this I derive a broad responsibility for policy in the EU - even in those areas that national leaders claim for themselves."
He added that he was planning on joining the 27 heads of state and government at the next EU Summit - whether he was invited or not.
Martin Schulz, 56, is a former book trader who joined the Social Democratic Party (SPD) at the age of 19. He served as mayor of Würselen, near Aachen, for roughly a decade before becoming an MEP in 1994 and joining the SPD`s executive committee in 1999.
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