Mercedes Bresso has been elected as the first female President of the Committee of the Regions (CoR). Bresso, a longstanding CoR member, was President of the CoR's PES group from 2006 to 2010.

She has been President of the Piedmont Region of Italy since 2005, and began her career in 1973 as a professor of economic institutions at the Polytechnic of Turin.

The CoR has also elected Ramón Luis Valcárcel Siso, President of the Spanish region of Murcia, as its First Vice President. He will hold this office until 2012 when he will, according to an agreement between the CoR's PES and the EPP Groups, take over the presidency from Mercedes Bresso.

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