Kateřina Konečná

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Kateřina Konečná MEP
Member of the European Parliament
Incumbent
Assumed office 23 April 2013
Constituency	Czech Republic
Personal details
Born	20 January 1981 (1981-01-20) (age 40) Nový Jičín, Czechoslovakia
Nationality	Czech
Political party	Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
Alma mater	Masaryk University, University of Finance and Administration
Occupation	Politician

Kateřina Konečná (born 20 January 1981) is a Czech politician, who, since 2013, has been a Member of the European Parliament representing the Czech Republic. She is a member of the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia.^[1]

Education[]

Kateřina Konečná graduated from Masaryk University, Department of Economics and Administration in 2003, In 2009 she received a degree in engineering from the University of Finance and Administration. In 2013 Konečná obtained a degree in law from Masaryk University.

Political career[]

In the 2002 Parliamentary elections, Konečná was elected to the Chamber of Deputies as a non-partisan candidate for the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia, becoming the youngest member of the Lower House. In 2005 she joined the Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia. She was re-elected in the 2006 elections. Konečná held the post of the Vice-Chair of the Foreign Committee of the Chamber of Deputies and was a member of the Committee on the environmental issues. In the period of 2004 to 2014 she was also included in the Czech delegation to PACE. In 2010 and 2013, Konečná was re-elected to the Lower house of the Czech parliament.

Parliamentary activities[]

In 2004, shortly after the Czech Republic joined the EU and before the subsequent elections of the European Parliament, Konečná became a “temporary MEP” before the elected Czech MEPs took up their mandate. In the 2014 European Parliament elections she headed the KSČM list and was elected with 28,154 preferential votes. Konečná was re-elected to the European Parliament in the elections of May 2019.

She is a member of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, the Committee on Transport and Tourism and the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly. She is also a substitute member of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety and the Delegation to the EU-Serbia Stabilisation and Association Parliamentary Committee.

Since 2014 she is a member of the Delegation to the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Partnership Committee, EU-Azerbaijan Parliamentary Cooperation Committee and the EU-Georgia Parliamentary Association Committee.

Kateřina Konečná appears in Transparency International's report, revealing the details of the Azerbaijan Laundromat money-laundering scandal.^[2] The report mentions that she was a member of the Czech delegation to PACE from 2004 to 2014 and also a member of the Czech-Azerbaijani Interparliamentary Group.^[3] The report notes that Konečná has taken a pro-Azerbaijan approach in the European Parliament when the MEPs criticizes Azerbaijan's situation on human rights in a joint motion for a resolution, titled "Persecution of Human Rights defenders in Azerbaijan"^[4][5]

In 2013, When Konečná was a member of the Czech Republic-Azerbaijan friendship group, she was among the supporters of the resolution "on the 21st anniversary of the Azerbaijan massacre".^[6] The resolution was widely criticized, as it was “bias and did not contribute to the fair relations of the Czech republic with the region of the South Caucasus”.^[6] According to the report, the voting of the resolution took place shortly after Foreign Affairs Committee chairman David Vodrazka received the Azerbaijani ambassador.

As a member of PACE, Konečná voted^[7] against the motion of resolution on political prisoners in Azerbaijan,^[8] which was not adopted. The motion led to a lot of discussion and in total 54 MPs made a statement about it in PACE. Christoph Strässer, the rapporteur of the motion of resolution, was targeted by the Azerbaijan lobby while conducting his research for the resolution and faced obstacles, including the rejection of an entrance visa to the country for conducting the research.

References[]