Ciaran Mullooly, new Irish independent MEP for the European Democratic Party

The European Democratic Party is pleased to announce that it has received and accepted the application for individual membership of Irish MEP Ciaran Mullooly, elected in the Midlands-North-West constituency. Accordingly, the European Democratic Party has forwarded the documentation to the Renew Europe group for its membership, that was accepted today. With Mullooly’s membership, the EDP rises to 10 MEPs.

Ciaran Mullooly, 55, was until 2021 a journalist at RTE, the Irish public service broadcaster, where he was the RTÉ News Midlands correspondent for 26 years. Retired, he devoted himself to EU social inclusion programmes, promoting local tourism and then accepted the candidature focusing his campaign on the issues of a just ecological transition, socially sustainable migration and strong support for small and medium-sized enterprises. ‘I would have always said I was a centrist,’ he said in an interview in early June.

“We are very pleased that Mullooly has joined our Party and our Group in the European Parliament: with him the family of European Democrats and Renew Europe continues to grow and get stronger. Our values will be increasingly central and decisive in this Parliament”, said Sandro Gozi, secretary general of the European Democratic Party: “Mr. Mullooly is a pragmatic and reasonable centrist, who will bring great added value to the EDP MEPs and the Renew Europe group”. “Mullooly’s commitments on key issues such as agriculture, migration, asylum and Ukrainian refugees are very important and in line with our values and principles. His positions on ecological transition are in line with ours: we have always been for a non-ideological, pragmatic and inclusive approach, which does not pressurise the agricultural world and small and medium-sized enterprises but accompanies them reasonably towards the changes that are necessary”.

“The European Democrats embody the humanist and most progressive wing in the European Parliament and seek to build alliances with those wanting a stronger, fairer, more sustainable, more humane and more democratic Europe. The political extremes are a recipe for disaster and it is only through the rejection of the false divisions between left-wing and right-wing policies that genuine regeneration can be built from the political centre,” Ciaran said: “We both agreed that the ecological transition in Europe must be pragmatic and inclusive, guided by technology, far from ideological dogmatism and in no way punitive towards families, businesses or professionals in the primary sector, farmers and fishermen. It is the European Union itself that must take charge of this transition and this means reforming European budgets and creating new financial resources.