This post is also available in: Spanish

The Parliament Magazine’s annual MEP (Members of European Parliament) Awards took place 16 March 2016. Briefly described it is an event designed to show appreciation for fellow MEPs. The event is sponsored by the business sector and hands out awards in 20 different categories where most of them have a dedicated sponsor (e.g. the Sport category was sponsored by Coca-Cola).

How the MEP Awards work:

1. Anyone can nominate an MEP they think has made an excellent contribution in an EU policy area. Stakeholders who nominate are asked to explain in around 350 words why their choice deserves to win in the category in which they’ve been nominated.
2. Nominations are collated by The Parliament Magazine and shortlists for each category are agreed.  Each shortlist is based on which MEPs have the strongest case for inclusion in each policy-related category.
3. The shortlist is announced and voting is opened to all MEPs. Only MEPs can vote.
4. The results are collated by The Parliament Magazine and the winners are announced at the awards ceremony held in March at the Concert Noble in Brussels.

The Digital Agenda category was sponsored by IEEE and defined as:

Connecting Europe digitally continues to be a priority for growth across every sector. This award recognises contribution in promoting and delivering legislation to support this such as improving telecoms, eHealth and commerce, internet policy, or the digital single market.

The finalists in Digital Agenda were Antanas Guoga, Julia Reda and Róża Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein. Julia Reda from PPDE won and jokingly said that she “never thought a Pirate Party member could win an award without hacking into the system.”

Julia Reda said the following in her speech after winning the Digital Agenda category:

Coming from a small party and considering that we have had some very difficult discussions in the Parliament in the last year, we have had big fights around copyright, it’s really a big honor to have this respect from my colleagues for my work and for my team so thank you very much for that.

Julia Reda is one of the Vice-Chairs of the Greens/EFA group and a co-founder of the Parliament’s current Digital Agenda intergroup. She sits on the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) and is a substitute on the Internal Market/Consumer Protection (IMCO) and Petition (PETI) committees, as well as the delegation for relations with the United States and India.

One of the most influential works she has done to win the Digital Agenda prize was the EU copyright evaluation report she did: Implementation of Directive 2001/29/EC on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. Her accomplishments are also explained in a recent article in the Parliament Magazine.

About Josef Ohlsson Collentine

I’m a dual citizen (American/Swede) and try to integrate my reflections from a more global perspective if possible. I’m the organizational leader for Pirate Times and work actively to strengthen the pirate movement through this work as well as being the international contact for Piratpartiet (PPSE). Elected board member of PPSE for 2015-2018.
If you would like to ask me something I speak English, Swedish and Spanish. Find me on the links below

 

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This post is also available in: SpanishThe Parliament Magazine’s annual MEP (Members of European Parliament) Awards took place 16 March 2016. Briefly described it is an event designed to show…