Monika Beňová (born 15 August 1968) is a Slovak politician who has been a member of the European Parliament since 2004. She is a member of the centre-left Direction-Social Democracy party SMER-SD. SMER-SD is a member of the Party of European Socialists. She presently serves on the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety. At the same time she serves as a Quaestor of the European Parliament and therefore she is a member of the European Parliament's Bureau. In present she has opposite views as her mother party - Smer, for example on European Union, NATO, LGBTQ rights in Slovakia, conflict in Ukraine and so on. She was recruited into politics in 1999, being one of the founding members of the Smer-SD party. Since then she has served in the National Council of the Slovak Republic as well as the European Parliament. She is known for her progressivism and left-wing views. Early life and education Born Monika Beňová on 15 August 1968 in Bratislava, she attended upper secondary school at the Gymnazium Vazovova in Bratislava. In 2000, she enrolled in the Faculty of Political Science and International Relations at the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. She graduated in 2005, with a master's degree in international relations. She was awarded eastern Europe degree PhDr. in 2007. Early career Before starting her political career, she directed several companies between 1992-1999, among them several stores. In early she was made director of a new private radio station in Bratislava named Radio Koliba, owned by her future-husband Fedor Flasik. The radio station was criticized at the time for having a pro-government agenda, as well trying to squeeze politically neutral competitors out of the market by overbidding and overspending them. Political career In 1998, she was first approached with the idea of starting a political party by future prime minister Robert Fico, her future-husband Fedor Flasik and Frantisek Határ. As a result of these discussions, she co-founded and subsequently became vice-chairwoman of the new social-democratic party Direction-Social Democracy (Smer-SD), with Fico as leader. Alongside others such as Fico, Robert Kalinak and Pavol Paska she was a part of the new generation of politicians hand-picked to start a new left-wing political party where the leadership would be without ties to the former communist regime nor post-communist corruption scandals, the so-called "clean hands" strategy. She was re-elected during the 2003 party congress. Having been