Marcel Kolaja

Marcel Kolaja
Kolaja in 2021
Quaestor of the European Parliament
In office 20 January 2022 – 15 July 2024 Serving with See List
Member of the European Parliament for the Czech Republic
In office 2 July 2019 – 15 July 2024
Vice-President of the European Parliament
In office 3 July 2019 – 18 January 2022 Serving with See List
President	David Sassoli Roberta Metsola (Acting)
First vice chairman of the Czech Pirate Party
In office 8 January 2022 – 13 January 2024
Co-chairman of the PPI
In office 13 March 2011 – 30 November 2011
Personal details
Born	(1980-06-29) 29 June 1980 (age 44) Moravská Třebová, Czech Republic (then Czechoslovakia)
Political party	Czech Republic: Czech Pirate Party (2010–2024) EU Party: European Pirate Party EU Parliament group: Greens/EFA
Alma mater	Masaryk University

Marcel Kolaja (born 29 June 1980) is a Czech software engineer, Internet freedom and digital rights activist and a former Czech Pirate Party politician who served as a Member of the European Parliament (MEP) from 2019 to 2024 and Quaestor of the European Parliament from 2022 to 2024. He was a member of the Greens–European Free Alliance parliamentary group along with three other European Pirate Party MEPs.

Kolaja was a member of the Czech Pirate Party from 2010 to 2024 and the Vice-President of the Czech Pirate Party from 2022 to 2024. From 2019 to 2022, he served as Vice-President of the European Parliament. He served as Quaestor of the Parliament from 2022 to 2024, being responsible for overseeing the administrative and financial matters of the institution. Kolaja graduated from the Faculty of Informatics, Masaryk University.

Apart from being a Bureau member in the European Parliament, Kolaja was a member of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT), and the Special Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus (PEGA), as well as in the delegations for relations with the United States (D-US) and with India (D-IN).

Topics related to the functioning of society in the digital age are his main focus. Marcel Kolaja stands for open technologies, freedom on the Internet, independence of media, transparency, and a united Europe.^[1]

Activism and Czech Pirate Party beginnings (2003–2018)

Kolaja worked as an activist against the adoption of software patent legislation in the European Union (EU) from 2003 and joined the Czech Pirate Party in 2010.^[2] He became the second candidate of the Czech Pirate Party in the 2014 European Parliament election^[3] but was not elected.^[4] Kolaja has worked as a technical product manager in Red Hat Czech, a research and development arm of Red Hat, Inc.,^[5] which itself became a subsidiary of IBM on 9 July 2019.^[6]

European Parliament (2019–2024)

Kolaja and Markéta Gregorová during the campaign for the 2019 European election

Election

Kolaja was the party's leading candidate for the 2019 European Parliament election in the Czech Republic^[7] and was elected MEP along with Markéta Gregorová and Mikuláš Peksa.^[8] His political agenda focuses on digital rights and prevention of increasing Internet censorship; environmental protection^[5] such as fossil fuel phase-out and minimizing waste pollution;^[9] consumer protection,^[10] addressing technological competitiveness of the EU on the world market and limiting corporate lobbying in the EU.^[2] Among his priorities is also addressing tax avoidance by multinational corporations that offshore profits via tax havens.^[9]

Tenure

On 3 July, Kolaja was elected one of fourteen Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament.^[11] He also serves as a vice-chairman of the parliamentary Working Group on ICT Innovation Strategy, as a member of the Bureau of the European Parliament as well as European Parliament Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection.^[12] Kolaja aims guarantee fair competition in the online economy by preventing Big Tech gatekeepers from abusing their power.^[13] He played a crucial role in initiating FOSSEPS (Free and Open Source Software Solutions for European Public Services), which aims to "manage and protect open source and treat it as a collective European asset across Europe".^[14]

Committee assignments

Kolaja was a member of the following Committees of the European Parliament:^[15]

• Bureau of the European Parliament
• European Parliament Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO)
• European Parliament Committee on Culture and Education (CULT)
• Committee of Inquiry to investigate the use of Pegasus and equivalent surveillance spyware (PEGA)
• Delegation for relations with the United States

Independent politician (2024–present)

After November 2024 leadership election Kolaja announced his departure from the party, due to different views on politics.^[16]

See also

• Czech Pirate Party § European Union and international relations
• Digital Single Market
• Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market
• Free software movement

References

1. "Bio". Marcel Kolaja's Official Website. Retrieved 26 October 2023.
2. Trachtová, Zdeňka (19 January 2019). "Volební lídr Pirátů: V europarlamentu chci bojovat proti korporátním tlakům a cenzuře internetu". Czech Radio (in Czech).
3. "Piráti zvolili čelo kandidátky pro volby do Evropského parlamentu". Deník (in Czech). Czech News Agency. 9 February 2014.
4. "Piráty po dvou letech znovu vede Ivan Bartoš, zbrojí na krajské volby". Mladá fronta Dnes (in Czech). Czech News Agency. 2 April 2016.
5. Perknerová, Kateřina (11 February 2019). "Pirát, který v Česku žádné spojence nevidí. Kolaja je lídrem do voleb". Deník (in Czech).
6. "IBM Closes Landmark Acquisition of Red Hat for $34 Billion; Defines Open, Hybrid Cloud Future". redhat.com (Press release). 9 July 2019. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
7. Kopecký, Josef (19 January 2019). "Piráti chtějí vyhrát eurovolby, příští parlamentní volby a sestavit vládu". Mladá fronta Dnes (in Czech). Mafra.
8. "Volby do Evropského parlamentu konané na území České republiky ve dnech". volby.cz (in Czech). Retrieved 25 May 2019.
9. "Rozhovory s lídry kandidátek do evropských voleb: Marcel Kolaja (Piráti)". ČT24 (in Czech). Czech Television. 7 May 2019.
10. "Piráty povede do eurovoleb softwarový specialista Marcel Kolaja". E15 (in Czech). 19 January 2019.
11. "The new European Parliament Vice-Presidents". European Parliament. 3 July 2019.
12. "Marcel Kolaja". European Parliament. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
13. "Digital Markets Act: European Parliament to push interoperability". European Pirate Party (Press release). 23 November 2021. Retrieved 7 March 2022.
14. "About FOSSEPS". Joinup Europa. Retrieved 22 May 2022.
15. "Marcel KOLAJA". European Parliament. Retrieved 6 June 2024.
16. Maci, Josef (10 November 2024). "Po sjezdu vystupují z Pirátské strany. K Michailidu se přidal i Kolaja". Seznam Zprávy (in Czech). Retrieved 10 November 2024.

External links

• Media related to Marcel Kolaja at Wikimedia Commons
• "Bc. Marcel Kolaja". Czech Pirate Party. Archived from the original on 25 June 2016.