Iliana Iotova was born on October 24, 1964.
She graduated from the Alphonse de Lamartine French Language High School, Sofia, and Bulgarian Philology at the Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski”. She specialized in the French National School of Administration (ENA – École nationale d’administration) and the Center for European Studies, Strasbourg (Centre des Etudes Européennes de Strasbourg).
She worked as a reporter, editor, presenter and director of the “News and Current Affairs” department at the Bulgarian National TV (1990 – 1997).
She headed the Press Center of the National Council of the Bulgarian Socialist Party in the period 1997 – 2007. She was a member of the National Assembly of the BSP from 2000 to 2016. She was elected as the deputy chairman of the City Council of BSP-Sofia in January 2006. and held this position until 2012. In 2012, she was elected as a member of the Executive Bureau of the National Assembly of the BSP. She has been a member until 2016.
She is a Member of Parliament in the 40th National Assembly of the Republic of Bulgaria (2005 – 2007). At that time, she was also chairman of the Bulgarian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of Francophonie and deputy chairman of the parliamentary delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).
Since June 2007, she has been a representative in the European Parliament from the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats. During her first term as an MEP, she was a member of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) and the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE).
During her second term as a member of the European Parliament (2009 – 2014), Iliana Iotova was the deputy chairperson of the Commission for the Fight against Organized Crime, Corruption and Money Laundering (CRIM); Deputy Chairman of the Delegation in the EU-Moldova Association Parliamentary Committee; member of the Committee on Fisheries (PECH), the Committee on Petitions (PETI), the Delegation to the Euronest Parliamentary Assembly; deputy member of the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs (EMPL), the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and the Delegation for Relations with the Maghreb States and the Arab Maghreb Union (DMAG). She is the author of the European Parliament’s first report on the Black Sea and its fisheries.
During her third term in the European Parliament (2014 – 2017), Iliana Iotova was elected Deputy Chair of the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) and as a Deputy Member of the Committee on Regional Development (REGI). She is a deputy member of the Commission on Women’s Rights and Gender Equality (FEMM). She is the vice-chairman of the EP Delegation in the EU-Montenegro Parliamentary Stabilization and Association Committee, as well as a member of the EP Delegation in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Union for the Mediterranean.
Among the main topics on which she works as an MEP are: fight against terrorism, protection of personal data, refugee crisis, admission of Bulgaria into the Schengen area. She is the author of reports and proposals in European legislation to deal with the migration crisis. In the Commission for Regional Development, she authored the first report of the European Parliament on cohesion policy in the mountain regions.
Fluent in French. She speaks Russian and English. She is married, has a son.
