Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 18 January 2012 - Strasbourg

2. Election of Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament

  President. − The next item is the continuation of the election of the Vice-Presidents of Parliament.

I must inform those of you who are not already aware of the fact that none of the candidates in yesterday’s Vice-Presidential ballot received an absolute majority, and so a third ballot is required this morning. In this third ballot, a simple majority will suffice in order for a candidate to be deemed elected.

  Indrek Tarand (Verts/ALE). - Mr President, I have noticed that only one-fifth of the vice-presidential candidates are women, and in order to increase their share in the candidacies I would like to withdraw my candidacy in favour of proper gender balance. I am slightly surprised that my male colleagues, for instance from Hungary, the Czech Republic, Italy and Greece, have not taken this opportunity. I am definitely withdrawing my candidacy on the condition that we seek a better gender balance and that we look for 14 colleagues who will assume their membership of the Bureau and take on board the topic of fighting against Bill Gates’ Microsoft monopoly of Internet systems.

I thank, once more, all the colleagues for voted for me – who trusted me as an independent candidate – and I promise we will continue to make the case for proper democracy inside and outside this House.

  Robert Atkins (ECR). - Mr President, could you explain to a simple soul like me why, if we have 14 candidates for 14 positions, who have already been ranked by the votes that were cast for them in the second ballot last night, we have to have another ballot instead of dealing with the important business that we should be dealing with, rather than making ourselves laughing stocks by having this vote again?

  President. − Mr Atkins, if you had been present yesterday evening you would have heard the detailed explanations. The Rules of Procedure of the European Parliament state that those who receive a qualified majority of the votes cast in the first or second ballot will be deemed to be elected as Vice-President. Because no candidate achieved this majority yesterday, we have to hold a third ballot.

The number of candidates does not exceed the number of vacant positions. I therefore propose that we should declare the candidates elected by acclamation. The precedence of the Vice-Presidents shall then be defined by the number of votes cast in their favour. Does anyone oppose this procedure? Then all 14 are now deemed elected.

  Daniel Cohn-Bendit (Verts/ALE). – (DE) Mr President, I did not understand this fully. As you know, the precedence of the Vice-Presidents is determined by the number of votes they receive. So, does this mean we still have to hold a ballot, or not? This was not clear from your somewhat hurried explanation.

  President. − On account of the fact that we have the same number of candidates as positions, then, unless anyone objects, we can declare all 14 candidates elected. The precedence in the protocol, from the first Vice-President to the 14th, will be determined by the result of the ballot. In other words, we must hold a ballot either way.

  Thomas Mann (PPE). – (DE) Mr President, why is it that you cannot give us the result of yesterday’s ballot? I was told that we can call up this information electronically. As we are talking about transparency, I would like to know how yesterday’s vote went, because we have the right to be guided by this. We need that information.

  President. − I read the result to plenary yesterday evening. You can check the result on the intranet. If you had been present yesterday evening you would have heard the result.

(The sitting was suspended at 09:30 and resumed at 10:00)

IN THE CHAIR: MARTIN SCHULZ
President