Pat Cox

Patrick Cox (born 28 November 1952) is an Irish former Fine Gael politician, journalist and television current affairs presenter who served as President of the European Parliament from 2002 to 2004 and Leader of the European Liberal Democrat and Reform Party Group from 1998 to 2002.

Cox was born in Dublin in 1952, but raised in Limerick.

He was then educated at Ardscoil Rís in Limerick, the University of Limerick and Trinity College Dublin.

He is married to Cathy, and lived at Ashboro, Shanakiel in the Cork north side suburb of Sunday's Well for 16 years.

Cox stood as a Fianna Fáil candidate at the 1979 local elections.

Cox first came to prominence as a journalist, then a presenter with RTÉ's Today Tonight, a four-nights-a-week current affairs programme which dominated the Irish television schedules in the 1980s.

He left the programme to become a political candidate.

He served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) for the Munster constituency from 1989 to 2004 and a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Cork South-Central from 1992 to 1994.

Cox was a presenter with RTÉ's Today Tonight.

Cox was elected an MEP in 1989 for the constituency of Munster, representing the Progressive Democrats (PDs).

During his first term, he served on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy.

At the 1992 general election, Cox was also elected to Dáil Éireann as a TD for Cork South-Central.

Following Desmond O'Malley's retirement from the party leadership in 1993, Cox stood for election to the post but was beaten by Mary Harney.

He became deputy leader.

Cox left the PDs in May 1994 in a dispute over his seat as an MEP.

It was expected that Cox would not contest his seat in the 1994 European election; Des O'Malley, who had a large Munster base in Limerick city and County Limerick, was selected as the party candidate.

However, Cox then decided to contest the seat as an independent, beating O'Malley.

On being elected, he resigned his Dáil seat and a by-election was held on 10 November 1994, which was won by Fine Gael.

He subsequently served on the Committee on Institutional Affairs from 1994 until 1997 and on the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy from 1997 until 1999.

In addition to his committee assignments, he was a member of the Parliament's delegation for relations with South Africa.

When incumbent Gijs de Vries stepped down to enter the government of Prime Minister Wim Kok of the Netherlands, Cox was elected president of the ELDR group in the European Parliament in 1998, becoming the first Irishman to lead a political group in the Parliament.

He subsequently played a key role in the fall of the Santer Commission by consistently – and loudly – calling for the Commissioners to resign.

Cox was unanimously re-elected Group President in June 1999, following his re-election as an MEP at the 1999 European Parliament election.

He resigned this post when he became President of the European Parliament on 15 January 2002, in accordance with an agreement between the European People's Party (Christian Democrats) and the ELDR groups at the start of the term (in the customary two-way split of the five-year Presidency of the European Parliament).

He succeeded the Frenchwoman Nicole Fontaine.

At his first press conference following his election as president he spoke positively of direct talks between the Cypriot President Glafcos Clerides and Turkish Cypriot President Rauf Denktaş.

In July 2003, Cox took a personal telephone apology from Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, after Berlusconi managed to offend several MEPs.

The controversy arose after Berlusconi compared a German MEP to a Nazi concentration camp commandant.

Cox did not contest the 2004 elections to the European parliament.

The Christian Democrats (European People's Party – EPP) and Socialist Groups agreed at the customary two-way split of the Presidency of the European Parliament.

Josep Borrell Fontelles, a Spanish Socialist, assumed the Presidency on 20 July 2004, holding it until 15 January 2007.

Cox is a member of the Comite d'Honneur of the Institute of European Affairs.

In 2006, he was elected President of European Movement, an international pro-European lobby association.

In June 2009, Pat Cox temporarily stepped down as president and took over the position of the campaign director for the pro-Lisbon treaty initiative Ireland for Europe.

Also in 2009, Cox co-founded the European Privacy Association.

On 15 September 2010, Cox supported the new initiative Spinelli Group, which was founded to reinvigorate the drive toward federalisation of the European Union (EU).

Other prominent supporters include Jacques Delors, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, Guy Verhofstadt, Andrew Duff and Elmar Brok.

In June 2011 Irish media reported that Cox, who had previously said he wanted to stand as an independent candidate in 2011's Irish presidential election, was seeking to join Fine Gael to get the party's nomination.

Fine Gael's national executive on 16 June 2011 approved his application to join the party's St Luke's branch in Cork.

He resigned as president of European Movement in May 2013.