Lívia Járóka


Lívia Járóka is a Hungarian politician of part Romani ethnicity. She is a Member of the European Parliament, first elected as part of the Fidesz list in 2004. Járóka is the second Romani ever elected to the European Parliament; the first was Juan de Dios Ramírez Heredia from Spain, who served from 1994 to 1999.
Járóka grew up in Sopron, a town near Hungary's western border with Austria. Her father is ethnically Roma, her mother Hungarian. After getting an MA in sociology from the Warsaw campus of the Central European University on a scholarship from the Soros-funded Open Society Institute she went on to study anthropology in Britain, focusing on Romani issues and culture. In August 2003 she had a daughter and a son in 2007. In 2012 she finished her PhD in Social Anthropology at the University College of London.
Though a receiver of a scholarship of the Soros-funded Open Society Institute and graduated from the Central European University, Járóka never condemned publicly the anti-Soros campaign organized by her conservative home party Fidesz targeting George Soros and the Central European University.

Memberships

She is Chair of the Working Group of the European People's Party on Roma Inclusion and Vice-Chair of the Committee on Women's Rights and Gender Equality. She is also a member of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs and the Delegation for Relations with India. She is a substitute member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, as well as the Committee on Human Rights.
In 2014 she retired as an MEP but returned on 15 September 2017 after Ildikó Gáll-Pelcz left the European Parliament. She was elected a Vice-President of the European Parliament on 15 November 2017. She was re-elected in that position on 3 July 2019.

Personal life

She is married and has two children.

Other memberships