STRASBOURG, JUNE 16 (ONASA-China) – Today, the new representatives of the European Parliament elected the Maltese MEP Roberta Metsola as the president of that EU body at the constituent session of its 10th convocation.
Metsola continues her mandate as president of the EP after receiving the support of 562 deputies in the first round of voting at the plenary session of the new convocation of the Parliament in Strasbourg, while her opponent, the Spaniard Irene Montero, who was nominated on Monday by the Left party, received 61 votes. Before the vote, both spoke briefly to the representatives, but Montero’s candidacy was considered symbolic.
Metsola’s speech, in which she emphasized her commitment to European values and announced the continuity of the EU’s previous policies, especially in foreign policy, was welcomed by the majority of representatives with strong applause.
In her address to the representatives, Montero requested that the EU contribute to the achievement of peace in Ukraine, while she strongly condemned Israel’s intervention in Gaza, calling it a genocide that could not have happened without Europe’s support for the government of Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, which caused occasional protests from some representatives.
The Maltese commoner succeeded the Italian socialist David Sassoli in the previous convocation as the leader of the Parliament in January 2022, and in the second half of the mandate of this Parliament, from the beginning of 2027, someone from the ranks of the socialists should take over the post of president, according to the agreement of the two largest representative groups of the EP- and from 2009, socialist and commoner.
The convocation of the European Parliament lasts five years, and its presidents have a mandate of two and a half years, they are elected at the beginning and halfway through the work of the convocation and have broad executive and representative powers.They are elected by a secret ballot procedure that can have up to four rounds. An absolute majority of valid votes is required for the election of the president until the eventual fourth round, i.e. 50% plus 1 vote.
While Metsola’s previous election was marked by a dispute between center-left and center-right representatives and threats to withdraw from the agreement of those groups on the election of the EP president, on Tuesday, in the first round, she received broad support from representative clubs that are considered pro-European, from representatives of her European People’s Party, the Socialists , liberals and a large number of representatives of the Greens.
Metsola is a former lawyer, mother of four, and married to a Finnish Christian Democrat whose last name she took.Metsola is the third woman to head the EP after Simone Veil (1979-1982) and Nicole Fontaine (1999-2002).She has been in the European Parliament since 2013, and in 2004, as a student, she campaigned for Malta’s entry into the EU.
The composition of the European Parliament in the new convocation is marked by a larger number of far-right representatives who are now divided into two clubs, Patriots for Europe and Europe of Sovereign Nations.
In the previous convocation, the extreme right was gathered in the Identity and Democracy club, which ceased to exist.
In terms of the number of representatives, the Patriots for Europe displaced the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) club from third place, which is also on the right, but which, despite its more pronounced “Euroscepticism”, is closer to the political center. ECR was also joined from Croatia by the newly elected Member of Parliament of the Patriotic Movement, Stephen Nikola Bartulica. ECR has 78 representatives in this convocation.
The new Patriots for Europe group, which was initiated by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, will have 84 representatives, and with 11 Hungarian representatives, the most influential groups are representatives of the French National Assembly of Marine Le Pen, of whom there are 30, and the Italian League with eight representatives.
Jordan Bardella from the French far-right National Rally (RN) party, who was the right-wing candidate for the French prime minister in the recent French elections, was elected as the president of that club.
The second far-right club Europe of Sovereign Nations currently has 25 representatives from eight member states and is led by the Alternative for Germany (AfD) with 14 representatives.
Although the European voters significantly strengthened the right in the European Parliament in the June elections, the pro-European clubs, the people, the socialists, the liberals and the greens, which until now had the greatest influence on EP policies, still have a convincing majority. The European Parliament in the new convocation until 2029 has 720 representatives, 15 more than in the previous one.
The most numerous are representatives of the European People’s Party with 188 representatives, and one of the 10 vice-presidents of the club is HDZ representative Željana Zovko.
The Left Club has 46 MEPs.
The constitutive session of the EP continues on Tuesday with the election of 14 vice-presidents, and by Friday the representatives will define the number of committees, subcommittees and parliamentary delegations, as well as membership and leadership positions in those bodies of the Parliament.
Pro-European clubs have informally announced the creation of a so-called “sanitary corridor” towards the extreme right, which means that they will try to prevent the representatives of those clubs from assuming influential roles in the parliament and its committees.
Montero, the Left’s candidate for EP president, warned, however, in her speech that such policies could be counterproductive and actually strengthen the right and its popularity. In the new convocation of the European Parliament, there are 54 percent of new representatives in and the share of women is 39 percent. Austrian Lena Schilling (Greens) from Austria is the youngest member of the European Parliament (23), while Italian Leoluca Orlando (Greens) (age 77) is the oldest.