Jan Zahradil

Jan Zahradil has been a Member of European Parliament since 2004. From 1990 to 1992 he was a member of the Federal Assembly of Czechoslovakia; soon after he became Advisor for Foreign and Political Affairs to the Czech Prime Minister. He then led the Department of European Integration within the Government Office. In 1998 Zahradil became a Member of Parliament, serving as Vice-Chairman of the Foreign Affairs Committee. In 2002 he was elected as a representative of the Czech Republic to the Convention on the Future of the EU. After election to the European Parliament in June 2004, he became Head of the Czech Delegation in the European People’s Party-European Democrats Group. In the 2009 European Parliament election, he was re-elected and became Vice-Chairman of the newly formed European Conservatives and Reformists Group (ECR). In March 2011 he was elected Chairman of the ECR Group, with an interim mandate until December 2011. He is a member of the Committee on International Trade and a substitute member of the Committee on Development and Subcommittee on Human Rights. He graduated from the Institute of Chemical Technology in Prague.