Maria Spyraki ( el, Μαρία Σπυράκη; born 11 September 1965) is a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

journalist A journalist is an individual that collects/gathers information in form of text, audio, or pictures, processes them into a news-worthy form, and disseminates it to the public. The act or process mainly done by the journalist is called journalism ...

politician A politician is a person active in party politics, or a person holding or seeking an elected office in government. Politicians propose, support, reject and create laws that govern the land and by an extension of its people. Broadly speaking, a ...

and a

member of the European Parliament A Member of the European Parliament (MEP) is a person who has been elected to serve as a popular representative in the European Parliament. When the European Parliament (then known as the Common Assembly of the ECSC) first met in 1952, its ...

(MEP) for

New Democracy New Democracy, or the New Democratic Revolution, is a concept based on Mao Zedong's Bloc of Four Social Classes theory in Chinese Communist Revolution, post-revolutionary China which argued originally that democracy in China would take a path ...

Early life

Maria Spyraki was born in

Larissa Larissa (; el, Λάρισα, , ) is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fifth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 144,651 according to the 2011 census. It is also capital of the Larissa regiona ...

in 1965. She studied chemistry at the

Aristotle University of Thessaloniki Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of phil ...

and then at the

London School of Journalism The London School of Journalism (LSJ) is an independent journalism school based in London, England, which offers qualifications in journalism, freelance journalism and creative writing. The LSJ provides both on-site and distance learning to it ...

Political career

In the

2014 European Parliament election The 2014 European Parliament election was held in the European Union, from 22 to 25 May 2014. It was the 8th parliamentary election since the first direct elections in 1979, and the first in which the European political parties fielded candid ...

, Spyraki was elected one of five MEPs on the

Nea Dimokratia New Democracy (ND; el, Νέα Δημοκρατία, Néa Dimokratía, ) is a liberal-conservative List of political parties in Greece, political party in Greece. In contemporary Politics of Greece, Greek politics, New Democracy has been the mai ...

list; she was elected first in order with 248.350 votes. She affiliates with the parliamentary group of the

European People's Party The European People's Party (EPP) is a European political party with Christian-democratic, conservative, and liberal-conservative member parties. A transnational organisation, it is composed of other political parties. Founded by primarily Ch ...

(EPP) and is member of the

Committee on Regional Development The Committee on Regional Development (REGI) is a committee of the European Parliament. Its current chair, elected on 10 July 2019, is Younous Omarjee Younous Omarjee (born 30 September 1969 in Saint-Denis, Réunion) is a French politician who ...

and member of the Delegation to the EU-Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia Joint Parliamentary Committee. On 31 December 2014, ahead of the Greek legislative election, Spyraki was shortly appointed Nea Dimokratia's spokesperson. After the elections she was however replaced by Kostas Karagounis in order to return to her duties at the European Parliament. In addition to her committee assignments, Spyraki is part of the European Parliament Intergroup on Seas, Rivers, Islands and Coastal Areas and the

MEPs Against Cancer MEPs Against Cancer is a group of 130 Members of the European Parliament who aim to "promote action on cancer as an EU priority and harness European health policy to that end" and to encourage every country to develop a national plan for combati ...

group.MAC MEPs in the 2019-24 legislature

References

External links

* * * 1965 births Living people Politicians from Larissa Alumni of the London School of Journalism Aristotle University of Thessaloniki alumni Greek women journalists New Democracy (Greece) MEPs MEPs for Greece 2014–2019 MEPs for Greece 2019–2024 21st-century women MEPs for Greece Greek expatriates in England {{Greece-MEP-stub