Member of the European Parliament, 1979–2014 Pöttering was a member of the
European Parliament from 1979 until 2014. By the end of this period, he was the only member of the European Parliament to have served continuously since the first elections. From 1984 to 1994, Pöttering was chairman of the
Subcommittee on Security and Defence. From 1994 to 1996, he chaired the working group on the Intergovernmental Conference of the
European People's Party (EPP) and
EPP-ED Group, the results of which became the official EPP position for the
Treaty of Amsterdam. In 1994, Pöttering became Vice-President of the EPP, and from 1999 to 2007, he was the Chairman of the
EPP-ED Group in the European Parliament. He was the top candidate of the
CDU in the
2004 and the 2009 European elections. Together with
Volker Hassemer, he is a member of the advisory board of the pro-European initiative "
A Soul for Europe". He was a member of the
Reconciliation of European Histories Group.
President of the European Parliament, 2007–2009 at the
EPP Congress in Warsaw, 29 April 2009 As part of a deal with the socialist group, it was agreed that he would succeed
Josep Borrell Fontelles as President of the European Parliament in the second part of the 2004–2009 term, which he did on 16 January 2007. He was elected with 450 of 689 valid votes, and defeated Italian Green
Monica Frassoni, Danish Eurosceptic
Jens-Peter Bonde and French Communist
Francis Wurtz. As President of the European Parliament, he initiated the
House of European History project. He made reference to the House in his inaugural speech in 2007. For many years, he has been the Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the
House of European History in
Brussels.
Later career On 4 December 2009, Pöttering was elected Chairman of the
Konrad Adenauer Foundation from 1 January 2010; he was succeeded by
Norbert Lammert in 2018. When the EPP membership of Hungarian party
Fidesz was suspended in 2019, EPP president
Joseph Daul appointed Pöttering – alongside
Herman van Rompuy and
Wolfgang Schüssel – to a group of high-level experts who were mandated to monitor Fidesz's compliance with EPP values. ==Political positions==