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Roberta Metsola is the new president of the European Parliament
Maltese Member of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, was elected as the new head of the European Parliament. Her election is a watershed event for Europe, since it marks the first time in history that the two women hold both the European Commission and European Parliament presidencies at the same time.
Roberta Metsola defeated three other candidates in the first round of voting, receiving an absolute majority of 458 votes out of 690 cast in the remote secret vote. President Metsola will head the Parliament for the remainder of the current legislative term, until a new Parliament is elected in 2024.
Roberta Metsola stated on social media: “I am humbled by the responsibility entrusted to me today as the President of the European Parliament. I want to thank my colleagues for their support and fellow candidates Alice Bah Kuhnke and Sira Rego. You can count on me to represent the European values our House stands for.”
Roberta Metsola, who turned 43 on the same day she was elected the new president, is also the youngest European Parliament President ever. Furthermore, she is only the third female President of the EP after Simone Veil and Nicole Fontaine. Immediately after her election, she addressed the House and stressed that Europe is “about all of us standing up for one another, bringing our people closer together.”
“It is about all of us defending those principles of our founding mothers and fathers that led us from the ashes of war and holocaust to peace, to hope, and to prosperity. Twenty-two years ago, Nicole Fontaine was elected 20 years after Simone Veil. It will not be another two decades until the next woman is standing here”, Metsola said.
The European Parliament’s President has a wide variety of executive and representative powers. Each president serves a two-and-a-half-year term that is renewable. Since the establishment of the Parliament in 1952, there have been 31 presidents to date. (photo credit: wikimedia)
