Five new Executive Committee members start their mandate at ESU

BLED – A new political leadership at the European Students’ Union (ESU) starts its mandate on 1 July. The Executive Committee, composed of ten members, welcomes five new members that were elected at the 64th Board Meeting of ESU held in Budapest, Hungary.

The outgoing and incoming members of the Executive Committee met in Bled, Slovenia, on 28 June to discuss the official handover of tasks for the new mandate. ESU will have to say goodbye to five members, some of which have worked for the interest of students in Europe for years. The outgoing members are Karina Ufert (Lithuania), Taina Moisander (Finland), Liliya Ivanova (Bulgaria), Tinja Zerzer (Austria) and Florian Kaiser (Germany).

ESU would like to thank all of those members for their extremely valuable contribution to the organisation in the past years, but some will continue their involvement in certain activities related to ESU or higher education.

The Executive Committee consists out of a Chairperson, two Vice-Chairpersons (together called ‘The Presidency’) and seven general members. The Executive Committee is responsible for steering and organising the organisation, both politically and financially, on a day-to-day basis. It is responsible for carrying out the decisions that are taken by the Board Meeting, ESU’s highest decision-making body, where all of its member unions participate.

The new Executive Committee is composed of the following people:

• Rok Primozic (Chairperson) is from Slovenia and holds a Bachelor degree in Law from University of Ljubljana, and has studied economics at the same university.  He has been a student representative for more than five years already, starting in Slovenia, where he served among others also as the acting president of Slovenian Student Union (ŠOS). He was a member of ESU’s Executive Committee in 2011/12 and a Vice-Chairperson in 2012/13. His work has been mainly focused on public responsibility and financing of higher education up till now.
• Elisabeth Gehrke (Vice-Chairperson), from Sweden, has a long history in student engagement, including being Vice-Chair of the Lund University Student Unions Association and at the National Union of Students in Sweden as well as being a member of ESU’s Executive Committee. She has for the past two years also held a position on the board of Lund University. Elisabeth is majoring in gender studies and has studied a myriad of subjects in social science and humanities including religion and philosophy.
• Fernando Miguel Galán Palomares (Vice-Chairperson) from Spain is a medical student at the University of Cantabria (Santander) and has been at the Università Degli Studi di Bari “Aldo Moro” (Bari, Italy), as a part of his ERASMUS exchange programme. Since he began his university education, Palomares has been involved in different levels of student representation, mainly in the field of quality assurance at internal and external levels.
• Erin Nordal, from Minneapolis, Minnesota, studies higher education policy at the University of Oslo. She has been previously engaged in the National Union of Students in Norway. She will be working on internationalisation and mobility as well as quality in higher education.
• Elin Blomqvist studies Business Administration at Arcada Univeristy of Applied Sciences in Finland. She has experience from the National Union of students in Finnish Universities of Applied Sciences in Finland-SAMOK. She will be working on the European Parliament elections in 2014 and financing of higher education.
• Maksim Milto graduated with a bachelor degree from the European Humanities University in Vilnius, Lithuania. Previously serving as Vice President at the Lithuanian National Union of Students (LSS), he will focus on the social dimension of higher education, communication with Lithuania’s Presidency to the EU Council and internationalisation of higher education during his mandate.
• Maros Korman is master at law graduated from the Pan European University in Bratislava, Slovakia. He was active in the Student Council for Higher Education in Slovakia, Erasmus Student Network and the European Law Students` Association. As an Executive Committee member he will be engaged in promoting higher education as a public responsibility, mobility and quality assurance.
• Michael Tolentino Frederiksen, from Copenhagen, Denmark, holds a bachelor degree in European Union studies from Roskilde University, where he has also been active in the student movement. He has been working on international affairs for the National Union of Students in Denmark (DSF). His work will focus on the social dimension of higher education and the Student Advancement of Graduates’ Employability project.
• Blazhe Todorovski, from Skopje, Macedonia, is a master student in business law at University Ss. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje. He will start his second mandate as member of the Executive Committee. His work will focus on quality assurance in higher education.
• Nevena Vuksanovic studies Landscape Architecture at the University of Belgrade in Serbia. She is re-elected to the Executive Committee of ESU and she will be working on the structural implementation of the Bologna Process and the Student Advancement of Graduates` Employability project.

A new Membership Coordinator

Additionally, ESU announced in June a call for a new Membership Coordinator. Several applications were made for the position and will the new Executive Committee be given the task to select among candidates for the position. The decision will be announced in July.

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For more information, please contact:

Rok Primozic, ESU Vice-Chairperson: +32/479.126.390 // rok@esu-online.org or Robert Hlynur Baldursson, ESU Communications Manager: +32/473.669.894 // robert@esu-online.org