2009 European Parliament election Jerzy Buzek (EPP, Poland) was elected Parliament President, winning with 555 votes to 89 votes over his opponent Eva-Britt Svensson (EUL-NGL, Sweden). The two candidates were: MEPs voted in a secret ballot on Tuesday morning 14 July 2009. The two largest groups in Parliament, the EPP-ED and PES, agreed to share the post of President of the European Parliament as they have done for all but two terms of Parliament. The first half of the term was taken by Jerzy Buzek MEP of the EPP, who was the first MEP from Eastern Europe to hold the post. He passed it
European Commissioner openly gay Commissioner. The first female Commissioners were Christiane Scrivener and Vasso Papandreou in the 1989 Delors Commission. European Parliament President Jerzy Buzek proposed in 2010 that Commissioners be directly elected, by member states placing their candidate at the top of their voting lists in European elections. That would give them individually, and the body as a whole, a democratic mandate. Each Member is required to take an oath before the Court of Justice of the European Union, officially the "Solemn Declaration before the Court of Justice of the European Union". As of December 2009, the Charter of Fundamental Rights