Member of the European Parliament, Hungary
István Ujhelyi graduated from the Faculty of Law and Political Sciences of the University of Szeged in 2002. He joined the Hungarian Socialist Party (MSZP) in 1993 where he has served in many leading positions. He was State-Secretary in the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development (2006-2009) and State-Secretary in Prime Minister’s Office (2009-2010) and in the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development. Elected MP in the Hungarian National Assembly from 2002 and Deputy Speaker between 2010-2014.
Chair of the National Tourism Committee (2006-2010). After the EP elections in 2014 he became Chair of Tourism Task Force in the TRAN Committee where he served as Vice-Chair. In 2019 he is re-elected as MEP, and Vice-Chair of the TRAN Committee. During the past years he has initiated tourism related programmes, as EU-China Tourism Year 2018, and European Capital of Tourism project, aka “European Capital of Smart Tourism”.
Mr Ujhelyi is Founder and President of Europe-China OBOR Culture & Tourism Development Committee, 2016 and Political Mentor of the FreeInterRail-programme (DiscoverEU). In 2018 he was appointed as special ambassador of the UN World Tourism Organisation. He is founder and president of the Confucius Institute in Szeged (Hungary) established by the University of Szeged and Shanghai International Studies University.