Alojz Peterle is a Slovenian politician and MEP. He was the leader of the Slovene Christian Democrats from the founding of the party in 1990. Between 1990 and 1992, he was the president of the first freely elected Slovenian government. He has been a Member of the European Parliament since 2004. In the 2004 elections to the European Parliament, MEP Peterle was elected for New Slovenia (national party), a member of the European People’s Party (EPP). In March 2006, he was elected as Vice President of the European People’s Party for a three-year term after recovering from cancer in April 2003.
In addition to his other causes, MEP Peterle has been an active promoter of cancer care, in particular as president of the informal all-party forum ‘MEPs against Cancer’. He has promoted a healthy lifestyle for a number of years and, after his own experience with cancer, has invested great personal effort in raising awareness of cancer issues.
In 2008, MEP Peterle was rapporteur on the Commission’s white paper entitled Together for Health: A Strategic Approach for the EU 2008–2013, and in 2010 he was rapporteur for ‘European partnership: Action against cancer’.
MEP Peterle continues to fight against cancer and to raise political awareness of one of the biggest health challenges we are facing in Europe and, indeed, worldwide.
Furthermore, MEP Peterle has been the recipient of numerous individual awards for his accomplishments: The European Voice’s, European of the Year in 2003, a gold medal from the Luxembourg foundation Mérite Européen in 2004, the Bulgarian APOZ Award 2009 for his contribution towards fighting cancer and The Parliament magazine’s MEP Award for Health and Food Safety in 2008 and 2014.