the affair to damage his party's chances in the upcoming local and general elections. Involvement in European politics Amid the sixth term of the Cortes Generales, Borrell was elected to chair the Joint Congress-Senate Committee for the European Union in October 1999, replacing Pedro Solbes. Reelected as MP for Barcelona in the 2000 general election, Borrell repeated as president of the Joint Committee for the European Union for the full 7th parliamentary term. Then, in 2001, Borrell was also appointed the Spanish parliament's representative on the Convention on the Future of Europe. In 2011 he was awarded Spain's medal of the Order of Constitutional Merit in recognition of his participation in this convention, which drafted the European Constitution that eventually led to the Treaty of Lisbon. During his time at the convention, he unsuccessfully pushed for a mention to a "federal model" in the draft, as well as he advocated for the explicit mention of the equality between women and men. A laicist, he also opposed then the inclusion of the notion of a "Christian heritage" in the text. In 2004, prime minister and PSOE's leader José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero proposed Borrell to lead the Socialist Ticket in the 2004 European elections. The PSOE won the elections with 6,6 million votes (43,30%), obtaining 25 MEP seats, although turnout was relatively low at 46%. Borrell sat with the Party of European Socialists (PES) group, and served as leader of the Spanish delegation. In July 2004 Borrell was elected President of the European Parliament, as a result of an agreement between the EPP and the Socialists, becoming the third Spaniard to hold this position after Enrique Barón and José María Gil-Robles. In the presidential vote, out of 700 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) he received an absolute majority with 388 votes in the first ballot. The other two candidates were the Polish Liberal Bronisław Geremek (208 votes) and the French communist Francis Wurtz (51 votes). He was the first newly elected MEP to hold the post since direct elections were held in 1979. As part of a deal with the conservative faction in the parliament, the EPP, he was succeeded as president of the parliament by the German conservative politician Hans-Gert Pöttering in the second part of the five-year term. In his capacity as president, Borrell also chaired the Parliament's temporary committee on policy challenges and budgetary means of the enlarged