Ilhan Kyuchyuk is the youngest MEP in the ALDE Group.

He is one of one of the leading members of Parliament’s CULT Committee on youth policies, social inclusion for people from disadvantaged backgrounds, and promoting youth entrepreneurship through education and training. 

As chair of Bulgaria’s largest youth movement, he has worked closely with numerous international youth organisations and contributed significantly to the report on a new skills agenda for Europe.

Kyuchyuk believes he has managed to reflect his belief that investing now in developing skills, encouraging and supporting community participation and building the confidence and resilience of young people will deliver a lasting effect on the EU’s future shape, development and competitiveness.

Through his experience and activity on social inclusion and labour market integration for refugees, he is a strong advocate of greater efforts in recognising the competences and qualifications of refugees.

Reinhard Bütikofer has been an MEP since 2009.

As a member of Parliament’s ITRE committee, he was recently rapporteur on the own initiative report on Digitising European Industry, which cleared plenary with a substantial cross-party majority late last year, he authored ITRE’s opinion on Parliament’s report on Towards a Digital Trade Strategy. During the German government formation negotiations in late 2017, he helped draft an ambitious digitising policy for Germany.

Bütikofer is an advocate of a shared European vision for the Digital Single Market, including implementing the right framework conditions, developing new key technologies with a specific European emphasis on cybersecurity and strong social resilience by focusing on skills, education and social innovation.

Digitisation, he believes, is a transformative challenge. For European industry to bolster competitiveness, it will be essential to combine innovation with the pursuit of sustainability. He warns that the EU’s industrial leadership in this field should not be taken for granted, however he believes Europe has all the assets it needs to be a global leader. 

Brando Benifei is one of the Parliament’s youngest and most active MEPs and this year marks his third consecutive nomination to the MEP Awards short list.

His main legislative areas are in employment and social affairs, foreign policy and defence. He is co-chair of the Parliament’s Youth Intergroup and vice-chair of its Disability Intergroup. He has been responsible for key reports on youth employment, including the Youth Guarantee and on the integrating refugees into the labour market.

As EMPL rapporteur, he recently successfully concluded the work on the European Solidarity Corps, a European Commission flagship initiative, soon to be discussed in trilogue. A true technology ‘geek’, he has been designated eSkills4Jobs ambassador by the Commission and is currently a StartUp Europe Awards ambassador.

Benifei is a passionate pro-European, and earlier this year was appointed as a board member of the Spinelli Group. He was also recently elected vice-president of the European Movement International.

Nils Torvalds has been an MEP since 2012 and last year became vice-chair of the Parliament’s Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group.

Politics, reading and writing have always been important parts of Torvalds’ life, through his years as a journalist and correspondent and now in the European Parliament.

An exceptionally active member of Parliament’s ENVI committee, Torvalds is currently shadow rapporteur on the renewable energy file, on the inclusion of greenhouse gas emissions and removals from land use, land use change and forestry, on the circular economy package and on monitoring and reporting of CO2 emissions from heavy-duty vehicles.

Torvalds’ work on sustainable forest management has been widely acknowledged, always emphasising the key role of the forest when moving towards a fossil-free EU.

Marlene Mizzi has worked as a rapporteur and shadow-rapporteur on a number of Digital Single Market dossiers covering issues including roaming charges, net neutrality, European Standards, European Electronic Communication Code and the Single Digital Gateway.

As lead IMCO committee rapporteur on the European Standards of the 21st Century report, she highlighted the importance of ICT standardisation as a crucial element in the EU’s Digital Single Market and stressed the importance of creating the right environment and greater opportunities for consumers, SMEs and micro-enterprises.

As the Parliament’s S&D group spokesperson on the telecom sector in both the IMCO and CULT committees, Mizzi has called for existing rules to be improved for the benefit of consumers and citizens, such as providing affordable and accessible internet as a universal right to all.

As rapporteur on the Single Digital Gateway, she has sought to provide citizens, SMEs and start-ups with a single access point to quality information and procedures across the EU’s different Member States.

Soraya Post was the first Roma person in Sweden to stand as a candidate for a political party.

She founded the International Roma Women’s network and co-founded of the European Roma and Travellers Forum.

She is S&D group coordinator on the subcommittee on Human Rights. She is also chair of the Parliament’s Anti-Racism and Diversity Intergroup and member of the Disability and LGBTI Rights Intergroups.

Post is Parliament’s rapporteur on the 2015 resolution that recognised, for the first time, anti- Romani discrimination and saw the EU recognise the Roma genocide during World War II. She is also rapporteur on the report on fundamental rights aspects in Roma integration in the EU: fighting discrimination against people. She also worked to have Parliament adopt new Rules of Procedure that strengthened hate speech sanctions.

In the LIBE committee, Post is currently co-rapporteur on the own-initiative report on the implementation of the European Protection Order and rapporteur of the Passenger Name Records with Mexico. She is also working on an own-initiative report on Conflict prevention and mediation in the AFET committee.

Soledad Cabezón is one of the ENVI Committee’s most active and enthusiastic MEPs. Since her election to the Parliament in 2014, she has been heavily committed to helping and improving the treatment of people affected by Hepatitis C.

She pushed for an own-initiative report on improving Access to Medicines, of which she was rapporteur. In addition, she is also closely involved - as both a politician and a cardiologist - with the victims of thalidomide. In the 50 years since the greatest health scandal in Europe, her efforts to encourage the EU to better recognise thalidomide victims are well documented.

She is also a fierce defender of European health systems as a key basis of the EU’s social pillar. Working on R&D is also a current priority for her, where she is calling to reinforce health research.

Cabezón currently co-chairs the Parliament’s cross-party Health Intergroup and is involved in the committee’s opinion on AMR.

Over the last year, Franc Bogovič has hosted or participated in a number of conferences focusing on the circular economy potential of new technologies, primarily in the agriculture sector.

He also hosted, with cooperation from the European biotech industry association EuropaBio and the EU-backed BBI-JU public-private partnership, a 'European Biotech Week' exhibition in the Parliament. This aimed at educating the public on new plant-breeding techniques and highlighting the potential of reusing biomaterials.

Along with fellow AGRI Committee MEP Tibor Szanyi, he was also successful in acquiring €3.3m of EU funding for a Preparatory Action “Smart rural areas in the 21st Century”, aimed at implementing successful practices, ICT and online processes, such as digital hubs. This ‘Smart Villages’ idea is, he says, closely linked to the Digital Single Market, digital platforms, urban-rural links, the sharing and collaborative economy, rural mobility and the bioeconomy and looks to improve quality of life, education and employment.

Biljana Borzan has been a staunch advocate of women’s rights and gender equality. Building on her experience as a medical doctor, she has also campaigned for sexual and reproductive health and rights.

She is a strong campaigner against violence against women and girls and for ratifying the Istanbul Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence.

She is also the standing Rapporteur for EU Funds to improve Work-life Balance. Borzan is also dedicated to improving women’s rights in third countries, as well as in the EU.

She was the S&D group shadow Rapporteur on the rights of women in Eastern Partnership countries and shadow rapporteur on the FEMM committee opinion on the 2016 Annual Report on Democracy and Human Rights in the World. Borzan also pushed for the report on women’s rights in Western Balkan countries, garnering the support of her FEMM colleagues.

In addition, she also takes a keen interest in women in business and was a shadow rapporteur on the FEMM committee report on external factors presenting hurdles to European female entrepreneurship.