Following her first election to the European Parliament for Bulgarian party GERB in 2009, Mariya Gabriel was nominated by the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, as Chief of the EU Electoral Observation Mission to the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2011. On 19 October 2012 she was elected Vice-President of EPP Women. In 2014, Mariya Gabriel became a Member of the European Parliament for a second mandate. Since then she is Head of the Bulgarian EPP Delegation and Vice-President of the EPP Group responsible for relations with Mediterranean countries. Born in 1979, Mariya Gabriel is the only Bulgarian Member of the European Parliament who twice won the prestigious Parliament Magazine’s annual MEP Award. She received the Parliament Magazine's MEP Award in 2013 in the category "Gender equality" and in 2016 in the category "Development". In addition to this, she has also been awarded the EACA Care Prize in 2015 for her commitment to violence against women and to gender equality. Mariya Gabriel has devoted her work to several priority areas, such as the coherence of external and internal EU policies, migration, EU visa policy, relations with Africa and Middle East and women rights.