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.

Jan Olbrycht was first elected as an MEP in 2004, when Poland joined the EU.

In the current legislative term, he has concentrated primarily on his work in European Parliament’s BUDG committee as vice-coordinator of the EPP group and as the standing rapporteur for the Multiannual Financial Framework (MFF). In this role, he negotiated the revision of the current MFF (2014-2020) on behalf of the Parliament and he has worked on its position on the recently presented new multiannual framework.

Since first entering Parliament, Olbrycht has been also involved in the REGI committee. He was rapporteur on the reports on the European Grouping of Territorial Cooperation and the European Regional Development Fund regulations.

Regional policy remains a key focus and he is dedicated to the urban dimension of different EU policies, which is why he established and presides over the Parliament’s URBAN Intergroup.

Morten Helveg Petersen has been an MEP since 2014 and serves as a vice-chair on the Parliament’s ITRE committee.

He has played an active role on the Energy Union, currently as rapporteur for the ACER file and shadow rapporteur on the gas directive.

As well as his work on different legislative files, in 2015 Petersen established the ‘Energy Solutions Network’. This aimed to bring together MEPs from across the Parliament’s political spectrum with a broad representation of different stakeholders, ensuring a more holistic approach to the challenges of realising the Energy Union.

He holds a degree in Economics from the University of Copenhagen.

Petersen was a member of the Danish Parliament for the Social Liberal Party for 11 years. In 2009, he left politics and became CEO of Foreningen af Danske Interaktive Medier subsequently becoming vice-CEO of Danske Medier.

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.

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.

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.

Throughout his two mandates in the Parliament, Andrey Kovatchev has been highly engaged in both foreign affairs and healthcare issues. In this regard, 2017 has marked the culmination of his activities in these topics. For many years, he has shaped and led the improvement of Bulgarian-Macedonian relations and the recognition of Bulgarian minorities in the Western Balkans. In 2017, the landmark Treaty of Good Neighbourly Relations between Macedonia and Bulgaria was signed after 18 years of delay. Additionally, the Bulgarian minority in Albania was finally recognized after 104 years of impasse. These two bilateral breakthroughs opened way towards European integration for both Macedonia and Albania.

Concerning healthcare, Kovatchev played a pivotal role in shaping the Parliament’s report on Access to Medicines. As the EPP group rapporteur in the ENVI committee for the next Multi-annual Financial Framework, Kovatchev has fought to increase the budget for health collaboration and to expand EU engagement in the field of healthcare. He has also helped develop the Patient Access Partnership, a patient-led platform for advancing innovative solutions to reduce inequality of access to healthcare.