A new leadership has been elected for the European Students’ Union

YEREVAN – Fernando Miguel Galán Palomares from Spain has been elected as the new Chairperson of the European Students’ Union (ESU). Along with Fernando, two Vice-Chairpersons and seven Executive Committee members were also elected at the 68th Board Meeting of ESU taking place in Yerevan, Armenia, from 9 to 11 May.

Over 100 delegates from 47 national unions of students from 39 countries participated in the meeting. The newly elected representatives will represent more than 15 million students in Europe. Their one year mandate will start on 1 July 2015.

“ESU should be more than the sum of its parts, and not just the least common multiple“, says new Chair

Fernando Galan from Spain served as Vice-Chairperson of ESU since July 2013 and a year earlier, was a member of ESU’s Executive Committee. Since he began his university education he has been involved in different levels of student representation at national and university level, mainly in the field of quality assurance, online learning and recognition. As ESU representative, Fernando has participated in the Bologna Follow-Up Group and different experts‘ groups of the EU and UNESCO.

“I aim to bring ESU to the spotlight of the policy-making scene, standing up for students‘ rights, making sure that all students have equal opportunities for accessing good quality higher education. We should also build alliances with other student organisations across the globe, for learning from each other and protecting students from attacks. Now more than ever, we have to make sure that all educational systems enable students to become active members of democratic, tolerant and open societies.“ Fernando says when asked about his expectations for his term as a Chairperson.

Background on ESU´s new Vice-Chairs

For the position of the two Vice-Chairpersons, the board members elected Lea Meister from Switzerland and Blazhe Todorovski.

Lea Meister is currently studying Educational Sciences and she has a Master of Arts in Eastern European History and Slavic Languages from the University of Basel, Switzerland. She has a long history of student engagement, including being International Officer of the Swiss Students‘ Union (VSS-UNES-USU), and member of the Bologna Experts Group. Since 2014, Lea has been Member of the Executive Committee at the European Students’ Union (ESU).

Blazhe Todorovski studied Law at the University “Ss. Cyril and Methodius” in Skopje. He has been involved in ESU as Member of the Experts’ Pool on Quality Assurance and in the last three years as Member of the Executive Committee. Since he began his university education, Blazhe has been involved in student representation and education policies at national and European Level, working as part of the expert pool of the European University Association and the European Association for Quality Assurance in Higher Education (ENQA).

These are the new Executive Committee members

For the positions of the seven Executive Committee members, the following student representatives were elected: William Benn from France, Karolina Pietkiewicz from Poland, Rebecka Stenkvist from Sweden, Tijana Isoski from Serbia, Viktor Kjeldgaard Grønne from Denmark, Liva Vikmane from Latvia and Cristi Popescu from Romania.