Member of The European Parliament
Wallis was elected Leader of the Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament 2000–2004 and then following the resignation of Chris Davies MEP she was re-elected Leader in 2006 a post she held till January 2007. She then became the first British female of any political persuasion in twenty years to be elected to the post of Vice President of the European Parliament, as well as being the first British Liberal Democrat to do so. As a member of Parliament's Bureau, her particular responsibility is for transparency and access to documents, the Arctic and high north, Question Time (jointly with another Vice-President) and the Academy of European Law.
Wallis is also a full member of the Petitions Committee. As Rapporteur to the Committee of Inquiry into the Equitable Life affair, she is author of a report which was approved by a large majority in the Parliament.
Wallis has a particular interest in issues of direct democracy and in November 2002 she co-launched the Initiatives and Referendums Institute - Europe (IRI-Europe) report in the European Parliament. In March 2006, she hosted an IRI-Europe conference in Brussels to discuss different approaches across Europe towards the issue of direct democracy and in particular the campaign for introducing a citizens' initiative at the European level. She is a Board Member of the Initiative & Referendum Institute Europe. This is a thinktank which has a particular interest in all issues relating to direct democracy.
Until Spring 2007, she was Chairwoman of the delegation for relations with Switzerland, Iceland and Norway and the European Economic Area (EEA) Joint Parliamentary Committee and remains a full member of that Committee.
Wallis employs her husband Stewart Arnold as a Parliamentary Assistant. She is also a Member of the Governing Board of the Academy of European Law, Trier (ERA); a Member of the Executive Board for the Institute for European Traffic Law; a founding Member of the Board of the European Initiatives and Referenums Institute (IRI); a Member of the European Emergency Number Association (EENA) Advisory Board; an Observer Member of the UK Law Society's EU Committee, the President of the UK Institute of Translation & Interpreting, the Honorary President of Haltemprice and Howden Liberal Democrat Party and the Honorary President of the Yorkshire and the Humber Branch of the European Movement.
Throughout her time as an MEP, Wallis has authored 28 full reports excluding purely technical, and 16 opinions, asked 40 written and oral questions of the Commission and Council (during Parliament 2004-2009 term). She successfully passed two written declarations – one in 2007 on the European Emergency Number 1-1-2 (which achieved 530 MEP signatures, which is the record so far), and one in 2008 on Emergency cooperation in recovering missing children.
On 30 November 2011 Wallis announced her intention to stand for the position of President of the European Parliament as an independent candidate on the basis of nomination by 40 MEPs from different political groups. Other candidates were Martin Schulz and Nirj Deva. Martin Schulz was elected as anticipated pursuant to the agreement between political groups, Wallis obtained 141 votes.
On 19 January 2012, at the half term point of the mandate, Wallis announced her resignation, which took effect from 31 January 2012.
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