Lucia Ďuriš Nicholsonová is a Slovak politician and Member of the European Parliament. She is a former journalist, former State Secretary of the Ministry of Labor, Social and Family Affairs, and former vice-chairwoman of the National Council of Slovakia. As a member of the Freedom and Solidaritypolitical party, Nicholsonová was elected as a member of the National Council during the 2010 Slovak parliamentary election, served as State Secretary and later became part of the Social Affairs Committee. She became a vice-chairwoman of the National Council of the Slovak Republic in 2016 and programme leader of the Freedom and Solidarity party for socially excluded communities. She has not dealt only with the social area but was also a loud and frequent critic of the government corruption scandals, including corrupted redistribution of euro-funds in agriculture or social and labour policies. Under her first married name of Lucia Nicholsonová she worked for at least ten media outlets in Slovakia, whereas her first husband, Tom Nicholson, was also a journalist, working for the Slovak newspaper SME and English-language newspaper The Slovak Spectator. She remarried in June 2016, subsequently being known as Lucia Ďuriš Nicholsonová. Ďuriš Nicholsonová was part of a small delegation from the Slovak parliament to meet theDalai Lama during his visit to Slovakia in October 2016. Ďuriš Nicholsonová is well-known for the reform she proposed as an opposition politician to improve the Roma minority living conditions and prevent their further socio-economic exclusion, consisting of early pre-schooling for children from excluded communities and more effective, specialised and motivational social support and tailored assistance.. In May 2019 she became one of the 14 Members of the European Parliament from Slovakia, as her political party Freedom and Solidarity has won 9.60% of votes, resulting in two mandates. She has focused on employment and social matters, including rights of persons with disabilities and active ageing, during her European election campaign and praised work-life balance incentives of the European Parliament. Ďuriš Nicholsonová is now a member of the European Parliament's Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs Committee. On 18 July 2019 she was elected as chair of the EMPL Committee.
