Mr. Hans-Gert Pöttering is a German politician (member of the Christian Democratic Union, European Peoples Party), and has been President of the European Parliament since January 2007. He studied law, political science and history at various universities (Bonn, Geneva), at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva and at Columbia University in New York.
Mr. Pöttering has been a member of the European Parliament since 1979, one of only 14 members of the European Parliament to have served continuously since the first elections. From 1984 to 1994 he was chairman of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence and from 1994 to 1996 he chaired the working group on the Intergovernmental Conference of the European People's Party (EPP) and EPP-ED Group. In 1994 he became Vice-President of the EPP, and from 1999 to 2007 he was the Chairman of the EPP-ED Group in the European Parliament. He was the top candidate of the CDU in the 2004 European elections. He is a member of the Executive Board (Präsidium) of the CDU.
Mr. Pöttering is the recipient of numerous awards and prizes. He has received the Robert Schuman Medal of EPP-ED, the Grand Order of Merit of Germany, the European Honorary Senator, the ‘MEP of the year 2004’, and the 'Cavaliere di Gran Croce Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana'.
www.europarl.europa.eu/president
