Sylvie Goulard

Sylvie Goulard

Sylvie Goulard (born 6 December 1964 in Marseille) is a French politician. She was elected as a Member of the European Parliament for the West region of France in the 2009 European elections. As an MEP she is a member of the Committee for Economic and Monetary Affairs, and ALDE group coordinator, as well as a substitute member of the Committee for Agriculture and Rural Development. In 2010 she participated to the creation of the federalist interparliamentarian Spinelli Group. She is a member of MoDem's national executive board and Sylvie is also a foreign affairs advisor, and former president of the Mouvement Européen France fr:Mouvement Europeen-France, the oldest pluralist association defending the European ideal. Having graduated with a law degree from the Université Paul Cézanne Aix-Marseille III and having studied at both Sciences Po (Paris) and l'Ecole nationale d'administration (ENA) she now teaches at the College of Europe in Bruges.

Background

Political advisor to Romano Prodi when he was President of the European Commission, from 2001 to 2004, she followed the work of the Convention presided by Valéry Giscard d'Estaing which was primarily made up of members of national parliaments, who had been charged by the European Council to draft a European constitution.

Sylvie Goulard's work focuses on the necessity of pursuing European integration whilst also inviting increased public debate about European questions. Europe's citizens must become more engaged with its development in the future. They need to be informed and active: and to achieve this cultural and professional exchanges and learning foreign languages are essential.

In 2004, before accession discussions were opened with Turkey, Sylvie had taken a position in the debate concerning the eventual enlargement of the European Union to include this country by underlining the necessity of preserving the European Union's political ambitions and its capacity to act. She also called for doubts expressed by citizens facing a European venture, whose direction they do not properly understand, to be taken seriously.

At the end of 2006 she was elected president of the Mouvement Européen-France (ME-F), succeeding Pierre Moscovici, who had also been a candidate. She was re-elected as president in December 2008.

Le Mouvement Européen-France regularly organises meetings, conferences and debates which aim are to enable a dialogue between political figures, experts and the general public.

In the context of a series of monthly conferences entitled "European Realities", organised in partnership with MEDEF (Mouvement des Entreprises de France), the ME-F gave the floor to the CEOs of companies so that they could concretely explain how they live and experience Europe on a daily basis. For further details see www.mouvement-europeen.eu.

On 15 September 2010 Sylvie Goulard supported the new initiative Spinelli Group, which was founded to reinvigorate the strive for federalisation of the European Union (EU). Other prominent supporters are: Jacques Delors, Joschka Fischer, Andrew Duff, Elmar Brok.

Sylvie Goulard writes regularly in a wide range of both French (Le Monde, La Croix, Libération) and international (Süddeutsche Zeitung, Financial Times particularly) newspapers.

Bibliography

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Sylvie Goulard.