From 1999-2009 he was a Member of the European Parliament for the Dutch People's Party for Freedom and Democracy, Member of the Bureau of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe and sat on the European Parliament's Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. He was a substitute for the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs. He was also a member of the Delegation for relations with the countries of Southeast Asia and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Jules Maaten was elected as a member of the European Parliament in the European Elections of 10 June 1999, on the list of the Dutch Liberal Party VVD and he joined the Liberal Group in the Parliament. He sat on the Committee for the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Affairs and, from 2002, on the Foreign Affairs Committee. During the first part of the legislature he sat on Economic and Monetary Committee. He has done legislative work on such issues as the Tobacco Directive, the introduction of the euro currency, water quality, AIDS, completion of the EU's internal market in alcohol products, international banking fees, the European Central Bank, safety of children's toys, car exhaust emissions, food safety, and genetically modified organisms and human genetics, homeopathic and pharmaceutical products, Dutch prisoners in Thailand. Jules Maaten MEP was part of the parliamentary delegation maintaining relations with the ASEAN countries and Korea and of a number of parliamentary Inter-Groups including Population & Sustainable Development, and Animal Welfare. He has been active on EU foreign policy issues including human rights, shipments of nuclear material, East Timor, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, the International Criminal Court, death penalty and the war in Chechnya. In 1999 he was also elected board member of the European Liberal Democratic Party. Since the end of 2001 he has been leader of the VVD-group in the European Parliament. The VVD members elected him as leader of the VVD list for the European elections of June 2004. Before his election as MEP Jules Maaten was Secretary General of the world union of liberal parties, the Liberal International, in London, during which time he was involved among others in supporting democratic movements in Asia, Latin America, Africa and Central and Eastern Europe. Prior to that he was a municipal councillor in his hometown Amstelveen, near Amsterdam, where he dealt with public finance education and social affairs. As President of the World Union of Liberal IFLRY he worked on issues of disarmament and east-west co-operation. He began his political activities in 1979 as Personal Assistant of a Member of Parliament in the Netherlands, and as Member and Chairman of the European Youth Policy group of the Dutch International Youth Council, in which Dutch youth organisations discussed their views on the future of European unification. A year later Jules Maaten became national Board Member of the Dutch Young Liberals JOVD and in 1981 joined the board of IFLRY. In 1982 he joined the executive committee of the Youth Forum of the European Communities in Brussels, and he was on the staff of the Netherlands committee for the UN International Youth Year where he dealt with such issues as unemployment and youth culture. From 1985-1989 he was a member of the executive committee of Liberal International. In 1987 he co-authored a book on Dutch liberalism, and he published numerous articles on political issues. For a number of years he studied History and Law in Amsterdam. He lives in Johannesburg and is married to Eva Horstmann; together they have a daughter Anna.
