(Strasbourg) The President of the European Parliament who will be elected in Strasbourg today to replace the German Martin Schulz will be the 16th to head the Assembly since it has been elected by universal suffrage, i.e. since 1979. Beforehand, the MEPs were appointed by their national voters. The first woman president of this new type of European Parliament, i.e. the one appointed by the citizens themselves, was the French Simone Veil, a high ranking figure from the French political and cultural world, of Jewish descent, deported by the Nazis to a lager during World War Two. Later on, there have been two French presidents, 3 Spanish ones, 4 German ones (with Schulz being the only one in the history of the European Parliament to have held this office twice); and, again, a president each from Poland, Ireland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The president does not stay in office for the whole five years, because mid-term the European Parliament renews all its offices: the president, 14 deputy presidents, the quaestors, and the members of the parliamentary committees, now 22, are changed. The president supervises the workings of the European Parliament, acts on its behalf with the other EU institutions and with the citizens, and signs the EU budget and laws. In the history of the EEC-EU, the European Parliament, established with the ECSC treatise in 1952, has been chaired by such people as Alcide De Gasperi and Robert Schuman. From 1952 to 1979, the Italians who chaired the European Parliament included De Gasperi (1954, he died shortly after his election), Giuseppe Pella (1954-56), Gaetano Martino (1962-64), Mario Scelba (1969-71) and Emilio Colombo (1977-79).