FDP Secretary General leads party into the European election campaign
North Rhine-Westphalia's FDP is sending its Secretary General and MEP Moritz Körner as its lead candidate in next year's European election campaign. The 33-year-old received a clear majority on Friday evening at a meeting of state representatives of the Liberals in Kamen, as the party announced on Saturday.
In front of his party colleagues, Körner emphasized the importance of the EU. "In the future, the EU flag must stand for peace and for the defense of peace - in a world order in which the strength of the law rules and not the law of the strongest," said Körner. "The European Union must grow up in terms of foreign and power policy."
The former head of the Young Liberals of North Rhine-Westphalia sat in the NRW state parliament for two years from 2017 before moving to the European Parliament. There, he is a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Committee on Budgets. He has also been Secretary General of the NRW Liberals since 2022.
It is not yet clear which place on the Liberal list he will take in the 2024 European elections - this will only be decided at a federal party conference in Berlin at the end of January. The FDP currently has five MEPs in the European Parliament; Körner was in fourth place in the 2019 election. Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann, member of the Bundestag, is to be in first place on the new list. The FDP's regional associations had already agreed in April that the current Chair of the Defense Committee in the Bundestag should take first place on the list.
Like Körner, Strack-Zimmermann comes from NRW. As other FDP state associations also want promising places on the list, Körner could have a harder time next year than in 2019.
The FDP's European election campaign will see its Secretary General, Moritz Körner, leading the party, given his clear majority at the state representatives meeting in Kamen. Körner, as a prominent FDP member, has expressed the importance of the EU's role in promoting peace and strengthening its foreign and power policy.
Source: www.dpa.com
