Elections to the new European Parliament are now just weeks away, and headline polling suggests there’ll be a swing to the right.
But alongside the party politics, MEPs can also have a personal spin on lawmaking, championing their own hobby horses and leading work on key pieces of legislation.
With the rising cost of living and supporting economic growth ranked among EU citizens’ biggest concerns, and MEPs poised to consider major laws on capital markets and a digital euro, financial issues are going to be a key part of their five-year mandate.
Here’s eight of the most prominent names who could influence EU economic issues over the coming five years.
- Stéphanie Yon-Courtin (France/Renew Europe)
The French lawmaker was recently named the most active legislator shaping capital markets and financial policy, in the MEP Influence Index compiled by EU Matrix.
Yon-Courtin previously worked as a lawyer at the European Commission and as an advisor to the French competition authority from 2007 to 2010.
In recent years, she has negotiated the EU's fiscal rules and reforms to consumer protection rules for retail investors – where she gutted controversial Commission plans that would have limited monetary incentives paid to financial intermediaries.
Yon-Courtin is the 13th candidate for France's Renaissance party, so she still has a good chance of winning a seat in the next parliament – even if polling suggests President Emmanuel Macron’s party will suffer significant losses.
**2.**Jonás Fernández (Spain/Socialists and Democrats)
Fernández has been a European Parliament member since 2014.
He was one of the vice-chairs of Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, which examines issues such as banking and insurance.
He led work on recent reforms to EU bank capital rules, a sweeping reform designed to avoid a repeat of the 2008 financial crash without choking lending to the economy.
A Euronews poll predicts 20 seats for his party, and the Spanish economist is in seventh place.
3. Markus Ferber (Germany/European People’s Party)
Ferber negotiated the EU's controversial new fiscal rules. The German has long stressed the need for a return to fiscal responsibility following the pandemic, and has called on the Commission to strictly enforce the budget rules.
In previous parliaments, starting back in 2010, he also spearheaded work on the EU’s landmark Mifid law, which sets rules for trading in financial instruments such as stocks and bonds.
The powerful politician is fifth on his party’s list for parliamentary elections in Germany – where the centre-right grouping is currently polling well.
4. Kira-Marie Peter-Hansen (Denmark/Greens)
At 26, the Dane is one of the youngest MEPs in the legislature and is now the leading candidate on the Socialist People's Party list. Peter-Hansen is a member of the economics committee and vice-chair of the sub-committee on taxation.
She has already worked on key anti-money laundering reforms, and led the negotiations on the pay transparency directive - legislation that will require EU companies to share information on salaries and act if their gender pay gap exceeds 5%.
5. Johan Van Overtveldt (Belgium/European Conservatives and Reformists)
Van Overtveldt is a former Belgian finance minister, and during this term he chaired the parliament's budget committee. In a recent interview he suggested he’d be calling for a sweeping reform of the EU money spent on poorer regions for cohesion and agriculture, focusing it instead on research and development.
He’s taken an interest in parliament’s work on distributed ledger technology that underpins the likes of bitcoin – but is also something of a sceptic, saying cryptocurrencies should be banned as “speculative poison” with no economic value.
He heads his party's list, so seems likely to be back after the EU elections.
6. Aurore Lalucq (France/S&D)
The French economist has led calls for a tax on the super-rich to finance the environmental and social transition. Lalucq has also vocally supported a new EU public job guarantee to create employment in areas of unmet social need.
Lalucq is fourth on Raphael Glucksmann's joint list with the French Socialist Party, so she will very likely be re-elected.
7. Eva Maria Poptcheva (Spain/EPP)
After switching from the Spanish liberal party Ciudadanos (Renew Europe) to the centre-right People's Party (EPP), Eva Maria Poptcheva, one of the vice-chairs of the Parliament's economic and financial committee, appears likely to gain a seat in the next parliamentary term.
Before becoming an MEP in 2022, she provided technical assistance to the Parliament on the EU’s trillion-euro budget.
Poptcheva led work on creating a new anti-money laundering agency – a tricky negotiation which saw Frankfurt fend off competition from eight other contenders to win the right to host hundreds of EU staff.
She’s also highlighted concerns over golden visas, a way of granting residence rights to the wealthy that also raises dirty-money concerns.
Poptcheva is 23rd on the list of the Spanish People's Party for the elections, and her party is expected to have 25 MEPs.
8. Fabio De Masi (Germany/unaligned)
Another to watch out for is German-Italian MEP Fabio de Masi, an economist and leading candidate of the Alliance of Sahra Wagenknecht, a newly formed party made up of former members of Die Linke, the German Left Party.
He’s not currently an MEP – but was until 2017, when he was vice-chair of a special committee probing money laundering and tax evasion.
De Masi has strong credentials in the fight against corruption. During his time in the German parliament (2017-2021), he led a probe into the collapse of German payments company Wirecard. According to local media, his next target could be EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s role negotiating vaccine contracts with Pfizer.
A Euronews poll suggests De Masi's party could gain seven seats in the June elections.
Who’s going?
Alongside those personalities are a couple of notable economists who definitely won’t be returning.
After three parliamentary terms, the co-president of the Green group, Belgian Philippe Lamberts, is stepping down.
After first working on key topics such as the regulation of the banking sector and the EU’s institutional response to the euro crisis, Lamberts has bemoaned new fiscal rules which he says will choke growth.
“This obsession with debt reduction will inevitably lead to a return of austerity, at a time when the EU urgently needs to boost investment,” Lamberts told his counterparts.
Lamberts will be replaced as Belgian green leader by Olivier de Schutter, who has published reports on employment, equality and poverty.
Another long-serving MEP who won’t be back after June is the chairman of the tax subcommittee, Paul Tang (The Netherlands/S&D). Tang was one of the lead MEPs on the recent anti-money laundering directive and has vocally opposed tax-dodging.
Tang backs new EU laws proposed by the Commission in 2021 that would seeks to prevent dubious empty-shell companies from gaining tax benefits. “We need to raise revenue by tackling tax avoidance, and shell companies are at the heart of it,” he told Euronews earlier this year.
Last but not least, the well-respected Portuguese pairing Margarida and Pedro Marques will not be back in the list of Portugal’s socialist party (PS), following a decision by its leader Pedro Nuno Santos to clear out existing MEPs.
Margarida negotiated the new EU's fiscal rules, while Pedro was an active legislator on the banking system and an outspoken vice-president of his political group.
In March, their party lost in national elections to the centre-right PSD, but according to an exclusive Euronews-Ipsos poll, they are still expected to win seven seats in the next parliament.
