Political groups

1994-2004: Group of the Party of European Socialists
2004-2009: Socialist Group in the European Parliament
2009-2019: Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament

National parties

1994-2019: Parti socialiste

Biography

Born in Neuilly-sur-Seine, Pervenche Berès is a former student of the Alsace School and a graduate of the Institute of Political Studies of Paris (SciencePo) since 1978.

From 1981 to 1994, Berès was an administrator of the French National Assembly. She began her career in the secretariat of the National Assembly's Delegation for the European Communities, and then moved to the secretariat of the Committee on Foreign Affairs in 1983. From 1988 to 1992, she was chargée de mission, then advisor for International Affairs in the cabinet of Laurent Fabius, President of the National Assembly. Finally, between 1992 and 1994 she worked in the Study Department. A member of the Socialist Party since 1982 (Paris Federation, then Hauts-de-Seine), Pervenche Berès was a member of the National Council from 1993 and of the National Bureau from 1993 to 2004. She was also National Secretary for Cooperation and Development from November 1993 to June 1994 and from December 1994 to October 1995. She was a municipal councillor in Sèvres from 2001 to 2008.

Pervenche Berès was a Member of the European Parliament from June 1994 to July 2019. She was first elected as the second listed candidate of the Socialist Party in the 1994 elections and was re-elected in 1999, 2004, 2009 and in 2014 when she was the head of her party's list in the Île-de-France constituency. She was Vice-Chair of the Group of the Party of European Socialists (1997-2004) and head of the French Socialist delegation (1997-2004, 2014-2017 and partly in 2019). She was her political group's coordinator for the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs from May 2016.

Berès chaired the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs from 2004 to 2009 (member from 1997 to 2009 and from 2014 to 2019, substitute from 2009 to 2014) and the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs from 2009 to 2014. She also served on the Committee on External Economic Relations (1994-1997) and the Subcommittee on Monetary Affairs (1997-1999), and was a substitute member of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Security and Defence Policy and of the Subcommittee on Security and Disarmament from 1997 to 1999. She was a substitute member of the Committee on Constitutional Affairs (1999-2008 and 2014-2019), the Committee on Legal Affairs (2008-2009), and the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (2014-2019).

Berès was a substitute member of the Committee of Inquiry into the crisis of the Equitable Life Assurance Society (2006-2007) and a member of the Special Committee on the Financial, Economic and Social Crisis (2009-2011). She was also a substitute member of the Special Committee on Tax Rulings and Other Measures Similar in Nature or Effect (TAXE) in 2015, and of TAX2 from 2015 to 2016, as well as the Special Committee on financial crimes, tax evasion and tax avoidance (TAX3) from 2018 to 2019. Furthermore, she was a substitute member of the Committee of Inquiry to investigate alleged contraventions and maladministration in the application of Union law in relation to money laundering, tax avoidance and tax evasion (PANA) from 2016 to 2017. 

In addition to her committee assignments, Pervenche Berès was a member or substitute of the Delegation for relations with the Mashreq countries and the Gulf States (1994-1997), the Delegation to the EU-Turkey Joint Parliamentary Committee (1997-1999), the Delegation for relations with the People’s Republic of China (2004-2009), the Delegation for relations with the United States (2014-2019), and the Delegation to the EU-Russia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee (2014-2019).

From December 1999 to October 2000, she was Vice-President of the European Parliament Delegation to the Convention in charge of elaborating a European Union Charter of Fundamental Rights. She was also a member of the European Convention in charge of drafting a Constitution for Europe from February 2002 to July 2003.

Chairwoman of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs, Pervenche Berès (L), and President of the European Parliament, Martin Schulz (R), take part in a meeting with union representatives prior to a Youth Employment Summit in Paris on 12 November 2013 © European Union 2013 - European Parliament

A member of the diplomatic team of the presidential campaign of François Hollande, she opposed of the renegotiation of the European Fiscal Pact, an important issue for Hollande, believing that “we do not renegotiate the signature of France, especially in Europe where we are a founding country.” She worked on Vincent Peillon's campaign for the 2017 Socialist Party presidential primary in charge of European affairs. After Benoît Hamon's victory in the 2017 Socialist Party presidential primary, she was appointed thematic manager for “Strategic Investments” in Hamon's presidential campaign. 

Pervenche Berès co-founded Finance Watch in June 2011. She organised the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for the Danielle Mitterrand Foundation - France Libertés in 1988. Berès is a member of the Board of Directors of the Jean Jaurès Foundation.

For more information on her time as an MEP, click here. 

What’s in the archives?

All the documents provided date from the time when Pervenche Bères served as Chair of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (2009-2014).

In most cases, the documents are related to trilogue meetings under the ordinary legislative procedure (a procedure which gives equal weight to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union on a wide range of areas in the EU decision-making system). The documents provided by Berès illustrate the negotiations she participated in as Chair of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs and as part of the European Parliament’s negotiating team on the following topics:

•    Programme for Social Change and Innovation
•    European Globalisation Adjustment Fund
•    Posting of workers in the framework of the provision of services
•    Improved cooperation between public employment services
•    Classification, labelling and packaging of substances and mixtures
•    Portability of pension rights
•    European Social Fund
•    European statistics on demography
•    Electromagnetic fields
•    Security of energy supply in the European Union
•    Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived
•    Key information documents for investment products
•    Maritime Labour Convention: Flag State responsibilities

Most of the documents are copies. The largest part of the documents are meeting files. The documents provided by Berès are a valuable addition to the existing archives, as they complement the series of reports and meeting documents of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs.