Irena Joveva (born 26 February 1989) is a Slovenian politician and a former news reporter. She was elected as a Member of the European Parliament and is part of the Slovenian political party Freedom Movement, affiliated with the Renew Europe political group on the European level. She previously worked in the domestic political editorial team of the Slovenian Press Agency (STA) and as a journalist on the 24UR news program on POP TV.
Early life and education
She grew up in a working-class family in Jesenice. Her parents moved to Slovenia more than a decade before her birth as economic migrants from where is now North Macedonia, then Yugoslavia. After completing her secondary economics school in Radovljica, she continued her studies at the Faculty of Social Sciences in Ljubljana. She graduated in International Relations and completed her master's degree in World Studies in 2017, focusing on the European Union's approach to the Macedonian national issue.[1]
Journalism
She was employed in the domestic political editorial team of the Slovenian Press Agency. Her coverage included domestic politics and the public sector. In 2014, she received the Watchdog Award from the Slovene Association of Journalists for Debutant of the Year. From 2015 until her candidacy for the European Parliament in 2019, she worked as a journalist for daily news "24UR" on POP TV. Her reporting focused on domestic politics, foreign affairs, European topics, migration, arbitration, and protests across Europe.
Political career
On March 4, 2019, List of Marjan Šarec (LMŠ) announced that Joveva would lead the list’s ticket in the upcoming European Parliament elections. She was elected with the second-highest number of preferential votes (42,190) and became a Member of the European Parliament. Alongside her, Klemen Grošelj was also elected from the LMŠ party. Upon her election, she among other things promised transparent operation by publicly disclosing meetings with lobbyists and the use of her office's funds.
She is a member of the Committee on Culture and Education (CULT) and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL). Additionally, she is a substitute member in the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI), where she holds the position of Vice-Chair within the Subcommittee on Public Health (SANT) since March 2023. She was also involved in the Special Committee on Beating Cancer (BECA), which prepared a European strategy to fight cancer.[2]
In addition to committee work, she is active in delegations responsible for inter-parliamentary relations. She is a member of the delegations for North Macedonia, Palestine, Central Asian, African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries. [3]
She is also a member of the European Parliament groups: Intergroup on Climate Change, Biodiversity and Sustainable Development,[4] the European Parliament Intergroup on Seas, Rivers, Islands and Coastal Areas[5] and the MEPs Against Cancer group.[6]
