Confident and combative
January 17, 2012
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.
Long career path
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.
Schulz shot to prominence in 2003, when he started asking questions about alleged conflicts of interest surrounding then-Italian president Silvio Berlusconi and his multi-billion euro media empire.
Berlusconi told parliamentarians the bearded, bespectacled German politician would be perfect in the film role of a "kapo" - a prisoner who worked for the Nazis in concentration camps.
Confident and combative
One year after the diplomatic spat, Schulz took the helm of the Socialists and Democrats (S&D) bloc in the European Parliament, where he quickly gained a fierce reputation for skilful debate and fiery rhetoric.
He once upset French socialists by comparing them to pigeons: "When they are up, they crap on your face, and when they are down they eat from your hand."
This forthright communication style made Schulz a favorite interview partner for reporters covering politics in Brussels. The resulting media exposure helped raise his profile among German voters. Predictably, it also made him the target of verbal attacks from euroskeptics and other political rivals.
"Mr Schulz has Lenin's face and speaks like Hitler," French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen said after Schulz successfully blocked him from presiding over the parliament's inaugural session in July 2009 as the assembly's oldest member.
Wheeling and dealing
Schulz's election as parliamentary president is part of a deal between the two largest groups in the European Parliament, the conservative European People's Party (EPP) and the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D).
The agreement splits the five-year legislative period down the middle. While Polish EPP representative Jerzy Buzek took the first 30 months after European elections in 2009, Schulz was promised the second half, which ends in 2014.
The arrangement is made possible by the current composition of the European Parliament. The EPP holds 271 of parliament's 754 seats, while the S&D bloc holds 190 - enough for the two parties to comfortably form an absolute majority.
Author: Rachel Gessat / sje
Editor: Gabriel Borrud