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,
Accession of Serbia to the European Union parliamentary majority and government was formed, and the SAA opposition was left without political power. The new Serbian Prime Minister, Mirko Cvetković, announced ""One of the first moves of the new government will be to submit the Stabilisation and Association Agreement with the European Union to the parliament for ratification"" and on 9 September 2008 the Parliament of Serbia ratified the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (SAA) with the EU. The European Commission (EC) subsequently welcomed the ratification of the agreement. On 15 September 2008, the Netherlands froze the trade related part of a pre-accession deal (SAA) with Serbia. The Dutch