Volt Europa Elects New Leadership
Volt Europa Elects New Leadership
- Italy’s Francesca Romana D’Antuono elected Volt Europa’s female co-president alongside Dutch incumbent Reinier van Lanschot
- Volt Europa also elects new treasurer, board members and conflict resolution body at general assembly in Lisbon
- Cypriot party Neo Kyma announces it will join Volt, as does Portuguese MEP Francisco Guerreiro
Lisbon, 18 October 2021 — Volt elected a new leadership which will focus on professionalising and diversifying the pan-European party in order to achieve the goal of forming its own political group in the European Parliament by 2024.
Francesca Romana D'Antuono from Volt Italia and Reinier van Lanschot from Volt Nederland were elected co-presidents by more than 1,000 Volt members attending the party’s general assembly in Lisbon, Portugal and online over the weekend.
Johannes Heinrich from Volt Switzerland was elected as treasurer. Anouk Ooms from Volt Nederland, Thor Larholm from Volt Danmark, Lucia Nass from Volt France, Lucas Amorelli Ribeiro Kornexl from Volt Österreich, Ines Consonni from Volt Italia and Charles Evain from Volt France were elected non-executive board members. All of them were elected for two-year terms.
Volt, which was founded as a response to the rise of populism and the far-right in 2017, has since grown to more than 20,000 members across 30 European countries. It has won mandates from the European parliament and the Dutch national assembly and to local councils in Portugal, Italy, Germany and Bulgaria. The new political leadership set a clear goal of winning 25 parliamentary seats from at least seven countries in the 2024 European elections and, eventually, to help build a federal European Republic.
“Thank you for putting your trust in me. We’re going to have amazing years ahead of us”, Francesca Romana D'Antuono told the assembly. “I ask you to challenge me every time you can.”
“The coming two years, we are going to build on what we have, grow and make sure the European Parliamentary elections in 2024 will be a massive success”, added Reinier van Lanschot.
Growing income from memberships means Volt projects to be self-sustaining in its daily operations from the coming year onwards, without the need for additional fundraising. The increasing funds will help create full-time positions at Volt’s European level such as expansion, policy and communications leads. The new leadership also underlined its determination to make Volt more diverse, for instance in terms of gender and ethnicity.
Cooperation with Neo Kyma: Volt announced an alliance with the Cypriot party Neo Kyma. Volt will support Neo Kyma during the Cypriot presidential election in 2023 and Neo Kyma will officially become Volt Cyprus run in the 2024 European elections. “Both Volt and Neo Kyma movements believe in strong citizen participation and are actively working on creating a more sustainable, modern and digital life in Europe”, commented Reinier van Lanschot, co-president of Volt Europa said. “We are excited to collaborate for upcoming elections.”
Portuguese MEP to join Volt: Francisco Guerreiro, member of the Greens/EFA group in the European Parliament, announced during the assembly that he will join Volt Portugal at the end of his current mandate.
About Volt
Volt is convinced that only democratic participation of all citizens across Europe will prepare us for a sustainable, economically strong and socially just future. Being able to gather thousands of Europeans at this event is the most compelling feedback to our vision. Volt acts on all levels - from local to European, as a movement and party - in order to empower every person throughout Europe. The movement gives all European citizens a voice and the opportunity to get involved politically from within society. Volt is now represented across Europe: Thousands of people of all ages and professions are involved in 30 European countries with teams in hundreds of cities and elected officials in Germany, Bulgaria, Italy, the Netherlands and Portugal.
Further information:
For media inquiries please contact:
Cornelius Rahn
cornelius.rahn@volteuropa.org
Tel. +49 151 172 86979
Katerina Georgiou
katerina.georgiou@volteuropa.org
Tel. +49 17670 6568 24