This week, ECPM's 14th General Assembly was held in the city of Warsaw, Poland. It was a fruitful GA with many highlights: a new MEP was welcomed, a new President and board members were chosen and three resolutions were successfully accepted. 

When opening the General Assembly, interim ECPM President and MEP Branislav Skripek asked for a minute of silence for the victims of the Manchester attack, which happened one day before. After a prayer and officially opening the GA, our MEP Marek Jurek welcomed us to the beautiful city of Warsaw. Stressing the role of Poland in defending Christianity during the rule of communism, Jurek showed the importance of fighting legal attacks against life that are still happening today.  

We had the pleasure of welcoming two new members to the party: firstly, Polish MEP Kazimierz Ujazdowski who has joined our party in the beginning of this year. In a short speech, he shared that the right of life, solidarity and subsidiarity together form the basis of Europe and how he is glad to have joined ECPM to play an active role together for the good future of our continent. Also, Slovak MP Jan Marosz was welcomed to ECPM.

Another highlight of our General Assembly was the (re-)election of our president and board members. ECPM MEP and interim President Branislav Skripek was unanimously voted for as our new President. In a word of gratitude, he thanked the previous ECPM President Peter Östman and reiterated the importance of the Christian principles as solutions for the problems Europe is facing. "ECPM acts as a group of Christ-centered Christians and defends the gospel in sometimes anti-Christian times", Skripek said. "This is how I see ECPM's future and how I want us to grow. We have learned from history that in times of mayhem and disorder, Christians can shine most brightly." The President thanked ECPM's other 5 MEPs and their teams for all their work and effort in the European Parliament and thanked the members for putting their trust in him for the next five years. 

For the term of 2017-2021, current board member Stieneke van der Graaf was re-elected and four new board members were chosen: MP Ladislav Ilcic from Croatia, MP Valeriu Ghiletchi from Moldova, Filip Lajszczak from Poland and Jacques Bazen from the Netherlands. After our page is updated, more information on the new board members can be found here. The General Assembly unanimously voted in favor of all new board members. 

After discussing an upcoming EU vision document and some reports of our activities in the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, a vote took place for three resolutions. Firstly, an ECPYouth resolution calling upon the European Commission to ensure that UK and EU students will still be able to participate in student exchange programs after Brexit was accepted. Secondly, a resolution tabled by ECPM MEP Marek Jurek stating that ECPM will keep on pursuing policies that will mainstream Christendom on a local, regional, national and European level and in all institutions in which the Movement is active, was accepted with one amendment. Lastly, another resolution by ECPM MEP Marek Jurek was accepted on the EU mechanism on democracy, the rule of law and fundamental rights; warning that the extra-treaty attempts to create institutions which would perform the same function do constitute a usurpation of power. All resolutions will be uploaded in full text on our website next week.