The former professional chess player Garry Kasparov was to set to challenge, in the European Parliament in Strasbourg late on 15 February, MEPs, their assistants and the staff of the EU institutions to a series of simultaneous chess games. His aim is to secure the 86 missing signatures needed to validate the written declaration penned by John Attard-Montalto (S&D, Malta), Slavi Binev (NI, Bulgaria), Nirj Deva (ECR, UK), Mario Mauro (EPP, Italy) and Hannu Takkula (ALDE, Finland) on introducing the programme ‘Chess at school’ in European education systems – the deadline for which is 15 March 2012.

.