Nationality Belgian Role Belgian Politician | Name Helga Stevens Website www.helgastevens.be | |
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Born 9 August 1968 (age 56) Sint-Truiden ( 1968-08-09 ) | ||
Helga stevens over jeugdzorg
Helga Stevens (born 9 August 1968) is a Belgian politician of the New Flemish Alliance (N-VA) and member of the European Parliament since 2014. She is well known for her work fighting for the rights of people with disabilities.
Contents
- Helga stevens over jeugdzorg
- Ecr group nominates mep helga stevens for european parliament president
- Early life
- Political career
- References
Ecr group nominates mep helga stevens for european parliament president
Early life
Born deaf, she went to a special school for deaf people in Hasselt, but later switched to a mainstream school in Sint-Truiden. After spending a year in St. Louis, Missouri, she studied law at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Then she went back to the United States and obtained a master's degree at the Law School of the University of California in Berkeley in 1993–94.
In 1996, she started working for the European Union of the Deaf (EUD) and was active in the Federation of Flemish Deaf Organisations.
Political career
Stevens became politically active and was for the first time candidate in 1999 for the Belgian Senate on the People's Union list (10th place). She was again candidate for Senate in 2003 on the New Flemish Alliance list (3rd place).
She was elected as a Member of the Flemish Parliament in 2004 and as a member of the Senate in 2007. She was reelected for the Flemish Parliament in 2009 and as a member of the Senate in 2010.
In May 2014, Stevens was elected Member of the European Parliament. In November 2014, she was elected vice-president of the European Conservatives and Reformists group. In addition to her committee assignments, Stevens serves as president of the European Parliament’s Disabilities Intergroup.
In October 2016, the ECR group announced Stevens as their group’s choice to be the next President of the European Parliament.