Romanian MEPs Victor Negrescu, who is part of the S&D political group within the European Parliament and representative of the PSD and PNL coalition, and Nicolae Ştefănuţă, independent and member of the Green group, were elected on Tuesday to the position of vice-president of the European Parliament.
Victor Negrescu and Nicolae Ştefănuţă, elected vice-presidents of PE PHOTO Pixabay
Victor Negrescu obtained 394 votes, and Nicolae Ştefănuţă 347 votes in the first round of voting.
Of the 14 positions of EP vice-presidents, 11 were filled in the first round of voting. The second round, where the remaining three places are contested, is set to start at 18:00 local time (16:00 GMT).
Who is Victor Negrescu?
Victor Negrescu is an academic and politician, former Minister Delegate for European Affairs but also a member of the European Parliament since 2014. On February 1, 2020, Victor Negrescu took over the mandate of MEP, as a result of the fact that Romania obtained, after Brexit, a new mandate in the European Parliament.
He is also the vice-president of the Committee for Culture and Education, rapporteur of the Committee for Culture and Education regarding the construction of policy in the field of digital education, and a member of the Committee for Budgets, active in the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament.
For his new mandate, Negrescu set three priorities:
- an active involvement for a social Europe, based on education, innovation/digital sector, environmental protection, health and transport;
- greater transparency at EU level and democratization of access to the European decision-making process;
- o equal rights and opportunities for all European citizens.
Victor Negrescu PHOTO Facebook/Victor Negrescu
Who is Nicolae Ștefănuță
Nicolae Ștefănuță is 42 years old, and for the last five years he has occupied a MEP seat in the European Parliament. He won the seat in 2019, when he ran on behalf of the USR PLUS Alliance.
Meanwhile, the politician resigned from the Save Romania Union, and now he has become the vice-president of the European Parliament.
Nicolae Ștefănuță’s first job, according to his CV, was that of diplomatic attaché of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a position he claims to have obtained through a competition in 2006.
From January 2007, he became the assistant of MEP Monica Iacob Ridzi, PDL member at the time. Then, from the middle of the same year, he became a European official of the Commission for Agriculture of the European Legislature.
In 2017, he took the first step towards a career as a politician, as a member of the Save Romania Union.
For about a year, between 2018 and 2019, he represented the European Parliament in Washington, as a diplomat ensuring the connection between the European forum and the American Congress. He gave up this role to run for the May 2019 elections.
For her mandate, Ștefănuță established ten priorities:
- The construction of social housing for young people and the transparency of real estate transactions
- Introducing free public transport and creating at least 10 high-speed railways by 2045
- Implementation of a 3-30-300 rule regarding green spaces: 3 trees in front of the house – 30% of the neighborhood to be green space and 300 meters distance to the nearest such space
- Settlement therapy for young people
- 100% green energy for Romania and reduced heating bills
- 6% of the national GDP to go to the budget of the Ministry of Education and equality for programs like Leonardo or Erasmus+
- Guaranteeing reproductive health, women’s right to abortion and sex education in schools
- Equality of rights for social minorities, such as same-sex civil partnership
- Banning dangerous pesticides and facilitating access to supermarkets and shops for local farmers
- Strict prohibition of forest cutting in nature protected areas, Natura 2000, secular and virgin forests and prohibition of euthanasia of street animals
Nicu Ștefănuță in the European Parliament PHOTO Archive
