Turmes was elected as a member of the European Parliament in the 1999 European elections. In parliament, he first served on the Committee on Budgetary Control before joining the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy in 2002. In this capacity, he served as rapporteur on the 2008 draft of the &lt;a href="EU%20Renewable%20Energy%20Directive%202009/28/EC"&gt;EU Renewable Energy Directive 2009/28/EC&lt;/a&gt; and on the EU Energy Efficiency Directive 2012. Between 2007 and 2008, he was a member of the Temporary Committee on Climate Change. He also represented the Parliament at the 2008 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznań, and the 2016 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh.