Libor Rouček

After graduating high school, he was successively employed as an aircraft loader, mine worker and computer programmer.

While studying, he worked in various professions, including as a tile setter, bottle sorter at Coca Cola and waiter.

From 1980, he was employed in the documentation and press office at the headquarters of the Social Democratic Party of Austria under Chancellor Bruno Kreisky.

In 1987, he was a fellow at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.; a year later, he gave a lecture at the invitation of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing.

From 1988 to 1991, he was employed as an editor at the Voice of America in Washington, D.C. From 1991 to 1992, he was a research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London.

He was successfully reelected as MEP in June 2009 and was subsequently elected as Vice-President of the European Parliament on 14 July 2009.