The seventh European Parliament was elected in the 2009 elections and lasted until the 2014 elections.

This article needs to be updated. (June 2010)

Quick Facts 7th European Parliament, President (1st Half) ...

7th European Parliament
14 July 2009 – 17 April 2014
President (1st Half)	Jerzy Buzek
President (2nd Half)	Martin Schulz
Commission	Barroso
Political groups	EPP S&D ALDE Greens/EFA ECR GUE-NGL EFD NI
MEPs	736 (754 from 1 December 2011)
Elections	June 2009 (Union) April 2013 (Croatia)
Nice[nb 1] Treaty of Lisbon[nb 2]
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More information Group, Leader(s) ...

Group		Leader(s)	MEPs
	EPP	Joseph Daul	274
	S&D	Hannes Swoboda	195
	ALDE	Guy Verhofstadt	85
	Greens-EFA	Daniel Cohn-Bendit Rebecca Harms	58
	ECR	Martin Callanan	56
	GUE-NGL	Gabi Zimmer	35
	EFD	Nigel Farage Francesco Speroni	33
	Non-Inscrits	MEPs without group	30	Source: European Parliament

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• 4–7 June 2009
  • Elections to the Seventh Parliament.
• 14 July 2009
  • First meeting (constitutive session) of the Seventh Parliament.
  • Jerzy Buzek is elected as President of the European Parliament.
  • Vice-presidents elections.
• 17 January 2012
  • Martin Schulz is elected as President of the European Parliament.

See membership below for details of size

More information Group name, Acronym ...

Group name		Acronym	Seats	Percent	Chairs	Vice-Presidents
	European People's Party	EPP	265	36%	Joseph Daul	5
	Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats	S&D	184	25%	Martin Schulz	5
	Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Group	ALDE	84	11.4%	Guy Verhofstadt	2
	The Greens–European Free Alliance	GREENS/EFA	55	7.5%	Rebecca Harms Daniel Cohn-Bendit	1
	European Conservatives and Reformists	ECR	54	7.3%	Michał Kamiński	0[nb 3]
	European United Left–Nordic Green Left	GUE-NGL	35	4.8%	Lothar Bisky	0
	Europe of Freedom and Democracy	EFD	32	4.3%	Nigel Farage Francesco Speroni	0
	Non-Inscrits[nb 4]	NA	27	3.7%	---	1[nb 5]

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After the 2009 election, the members formed seven groups with around 26 independent members, mainly from the far right which failed to unify into a political group. With the Treaty of Lisbon not in force in time for the elections, the national distribution followed the rules of the Treaty of Nice which necessitated a reduction to 736 members. Extra members will join the chamber if Lisbon comes into force.^[4]

The seventh parliament ended with a total of 766 MEPs (including Croatia) and was slimmed down to 751 at the start of the eight parliament.

For the seventh parliament, the number of women increased from 31% to 35% (the highest to date, from 16% in 1979) with increases in most countries. The largest percentage was in Sweden, with 56% of MEPs women, followed by Estonia with 50%. The lowest was Malta with no women members at all, followed by the Czech Republic with 18%, down from 21%.^[5]

From inauguration, the youngest member was Emilie Turunen of Denmark (born in 1984 making her 25) and the oldest member was Ciriaco de Mita of Italy (born 1928 making him 81).^[6] Usually the oldest member would preside over the chamber for the election of the Parliament's president. However, with concern that the far-right Jean-Marie Le Pen would be the oldest member (rather than De Mita) the rules were changed to give this role to the outgoing President.^[7]

Groups^[8]

¹ Edward McMillan-Scott was expelled from the Conservative Party on 15 September 2009;^[9]
2 Nikki Sinclaire was expelled from the UK Independence Party on 4 March 2010.^[10]
3 Edward McMillan-Scott joined Liberal Democrats on 12 March 2010.^[11]

⁴ Mike Nattrass left UK Independence Party on 23 June 2010.^[12]

Apportionment

More information State, Seats ...

State	Seats		State	Seats
Germany	99		France	72
UK	72		Italy	72
Spain	50		Poland	50
Romania	33		Netherlands	25
Greece	22		Portugal	22
Belgium	22		Czech Republic	22
Hungary	22		Sweden	18
Austria	17		Bulgaria	17
Denmark	13		Slovakia	13
Finland	13		Ireland	12
Lithuania	12		Latvia	8
Slovenia	7		Estonia	6
Cyprus	6		Luxembourg	6
Malta	5		Total	736

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