It’s back to school time for the European Parliament. In Strasbourg, the assembly renewed during the European elections last June is meeting for the first time in plenary this Tuesday. At the opening of the session, the Maltese conservative Roberta Metsola, 45, was re-elected President of the European Parliament by an overwhelming majority of MEPs. A position she had already held since 2022.
Roberta Metsola, who hails from the right-wing EPP party, the leading political force in the European Parliament, was re-elected for a new two-and-a-half-year term by 562 votes, compared to 61 votes for her only opponent, the Spanish Irene Montero (radical left). She thus remains the third woman to hold this position, after the French Simone Veil (1979-1982) and Nicole Fontaine (1999-2002).
Her re-election, in a European Parliament marked by a culture of compromise, was widely welcomed. The radical left declared that it “expects to work” with her on certain “fundamental issues”, while the ecologists want “constructive collaboration” and the far-right ECR party spoke of her as “a mediator between political groups (…) very appreciated in our group”.
“We need a strong Parliament”
After announcing her re-election, Roberta Metsola then declared: “We need a strong Parliament in a strong Union (…) to maintain the pressure to guarantee our right of initiative (in the face of the European Commission), improve our powers of control and investigation, and remedy institutional imbalances.”
The President of the Parliament then called for “giving people back enthusiasm and belief in the European project, a safer, more equal shared space”, in particular by strengthening “the social pillar” of the EU and briefly welcomed in French the location of the institution’s headquarters in Strasbourg, “a living symbol of reconciliation” within Europe. “Europe remains the answer. Long live Europe!”, she concluded.
The conservative has become known for her very active support for Ukraine: she was the first head of an EU institution to visit Kiev in early April 2022, just over a month after the start of the Russian offensive. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also congratulated her, adding: “I look forward to continuing our close cooperation in order to restore a just peace as soon as possible.”
A re-election also welcomed by the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, also recently knighted for a second term. She congratulated Roberta Metsola for her “entirely deserved” position and praised a “leadership and a passion for Europe more necessary than ever”.
Under the leadership of Roberta Metsola, the European Parliament voted, at the end of lengthy negotiations, on the environmental legislation of the Green Deal, unprecedented regulations imposed on digital giants and the texts of the EU Migration Pact.
A mandate under pressure
But her previous term was marred by the Qatargate scandal, around suspicions of corruption of elected officials involving Qatar and Morocco, which broke out in 2022. MEP Eva Kaili, then one of her 14 vice-presidents, had been arrested and removed from her duties. Roberta Metsola had then promised “far-reaching reforms” via better controls and transparency registers.
Her profile also remains marked by her opposition to abortion. For example, Roberta Metsola voted in 2021 against resolutions condemning the ban on abortion in Poland and Texas. However, she committed when she became president to defending the official positions of the institution and to “go further to guarantee and defend women’s rights” and to counter violence against women, priorities that she reiterated again this Tuesday.
GIPHY App Key not set. Please check settings