MEPs elected Jerzy Buzek to be the new European Parliament President with 555 votes in favour (or 86.18 per cent of the valid votes). He was elected after the first-round of voting. The 69-year-old Polish MEP will lead the European Parliament for two and a half years (until January 2012). President Buzek is the first President of the European Parliament to come from Central and Eastern Europe following the EU's enlargement in 2004.

Jerzy Buzek (EPP, Poland) replaces the outgoing President Hans-Gert Pöttering (EPP, Germany).  In a brief address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg immediately after the vote, Mr Buzek described his election as "an enormous challenge and a great honour". 
 
Once his ambition had been to be a member of parliament in a free Poland, but now he was President of the European Parliament.  He saw this as "a measure of how Europe can change".  He also regarded it as "symbolic" for the other central and eastern European countries who joined the EU in 2004 and as "a tribute to the millions of people who didn't bow to a hostile system". 
 
Looking ahead to the challenges facing the EU, such as unemployment, energy security and climate change, Mr Buzek stressed that "we first need the Lisbon Treaty so that the Union can be well-organised and effective".  He concluded by paying tribute to his predecessor as EP President, Mr Pöttering. 

Jerzy Buzek was born on 3 July 1940 in Śmiłowice (Silesia region) in Poland. He has been Prime Minister of Poland and Member of the Polish Parliament (Sejm) from 1997 to 2001. He guided Poland into the NATO structures in 1999, and initiated accession negotiations with the European Union in 1997.

In Europe, he has been member of the European Parliament since 2004, elected with the best result in Poland, Vice-president of the European Energy Forum since 2004, and he was member of the Industry, Research and Energy Committee as well as of the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety one in the previous term.

Buzek was the rapporteur for the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Innovation as well as the rapporteur for the European Strategic Energy Technology Plan.