Strasbourg (France), July 14 (DPA) The European Parliament Tuesday elected its first president from a former-Communist member state as the 736-seat legislature gave an overwhelming majority of votes to Poland's former conservative premier Jerzy Buzek.

Buzek, 69, received 555 out of a total of 713 votes cast, according to official results. His only challenger, Swedish environmentalist Eva-Britt Svensson, received 89 votes.

The vote is highly symbolic, as it marks the first time that a citizen of one of the EU's new member states, which spent much of the 20th century behind the Iron Curtain, has been appointed to one of the bloc's permanent presidencies.

Buzek's victory had already been assured after the parliament's conservative, socialist and liberal groupings, who together control 533 seats, agreed to appoint Buzek for the first 30 months of the 2009-14 session.