Member of the European Parliament Sarkozy, former Deputy PM of the United Kingdom Nick Clegg, former Prime Minister of Italy Silvio Berlusconi, Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Belgian PM Elio Di Rupo. The so-called "dual mandate", in which an individual is a member of both his or her national parliament and the European Parliament, was officially discouraged by a growing number of political parties and Member States, and is prohibited as of 2009. In the 2004–2009 Parliament, a small number of members still held a dual mandate. Notably, Ian Paisley and John Hume once held "triple mandates" as MEP, MP in the House of Commons,
Helmut Kohl more than a year in January 2000, but he was partly rehabilitated in later years. The later Chancellor Angela Merkel started her political career as Kohl's protegée. Kohl was described as "the greatest European leader of the second half of the 20th century" by U.S. Presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Kohl received the Charlemagne Prize in 1988 with François Mitterrand; in 1998 Kohl became the second person to be named Honorary Citizen of Europe by the European heads of state or government. Following his death, Kohl was honored with the first ever European Act of State in