Under the category "Random MEPs" I will from time to time draw a random number from 1 to 736 and take a short a look at the MEP with this number according to an alphabetic list of all MEPs.
The first one on my list is the MEP N° 661*: Claude Turmes.
He is male. 48 years old. From Luxembourg. He is a Green.
This is his personal website. This is his voice (mp3, French). And that's him in an interview in April:
It is the third term in the European Parliament for this former sports teacher, and he is now one of the vice-chairpersons of the Greens in the EP, as well as a member of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy.
According to his declaration on financial liabilities, he is the vice-president of EUFORES (a network of MEPs for renewable energies), he has 10 shares of the Luxembourg electricity company Cegedel as well as 7,000 Euros invested in a Luxembourg energy park. He also participates in some alternative media projects in his home country.
Google finds 107,000 results for the search term "Claude Turmes" (with quotation marks), and the first 100 results are absolutely dominated by the terms "Greens", "energy" and "climate".
According to his Votewatch profile for the 2004-2009 term [If this link doesn't work, click on the 2004-09 term on the upper left of Votewatch, and re-use the link again.], he has drafted 4 reports and held 77 speeches in the plenary, which puts him into the upper third of MEPs in both categories, while his attendance rate with almost 91% puts him on the upper ranks of the second third of MEPs. He is also among the most loyal MEPs when it comes to voting with his political group, or, in other words, he shares most of the majority opinions within the Greens in the EP.
For a full list of activities in the European Parliament, see his parliamentary biography. But it is noteworthy that his last work as a rapporteur was on the
Proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the promotion of the use of energy from renewable sourceswhich ended in a directive passed in June of this year, just before the end of the legislative term of the old parliament.
He thus looks like a rather influential MEP in the field of climate change and renewable energies, and could be a good subject for all those blogging in the second round of Th!nk About It!...
* Since I could not find a full list of MEPs in one document, I counted through the alphabetic list on the EP's website after I draw the number 661. Although my counting could be wrong, it's still random.
4 comments:
Hey, Julien!
This is a great idea for a new section - I like the direction you're taking your blog! Investigating random bits of EU bureaucracy.
Would you mind if I joined you in this task? I would also like to investigate one random MEP per week. As long as you don't mind me stealing your good idea?
Joe
Joe, I am more than happy to share this task, because I won't finish the list on my own before the end of the term... ;-)
And in the web 2.0, good ideas are never stolen, they are taken up and made even better!
Nice piece Julien and great idea.
Interesting that you picked Turmes. He was voted MEP of the year, if I am not wrong, by the European Voice last year. He has a very non-compromising approach in the EP and sometimes puts on a real display of passion and activism in the issues he believes in.
This term he actually left the Envi-committee in order to become vice-chairman of the Industry committee. I expect he will wreck havoc there, probably for the better of the environment.
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