Marcel Kolaja

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.

Marcel Kolaja stands for open technologies, freedom on the Internet, independence of media, transparency, and a united Europe.

[1] 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.

[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.

[12] Kolaja aims guarantee fair competition in the online economy by preventing Big Tech gatekeepers from abusing their power.

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