The European Parliament today re-elected Roberta Metsola (EPP) as President of the institution for the next two and a half years. Metsola received 562 votes out of a total of 623 valid ballots and with the required majority of 312 votes, quoted by BTA.
The second candidate, Irene Montero, proposed by the "Left", received 61 votes.
Later today, the EP will elect the new Quaestors.
Metsola is the youngest President of the European Parliament (EP) ever elected. The first Maltese citizen to hold this position. One of the first female Maltese MEPs. The third female President of the European Parliament. A lawyer specializing in European law. Wife and mother of four sons.
Who is Roberta?
Roberta Mezzola was born in 1979 in Malta. She is a lawyer by profession, specializing in European law and politics. She completed an exchange under the "Erasmus" program in France and graduated from the University of Malta and the College of Europe in Bruges.
During her student years, she led an active campaign for Malta's membership in the EU and actively participated in various organizations. In the period 2002-2003, when she was 23 years old, she was Secretary General of the student organization "European Democrats". In 2004, she stood for the European elections, collecting 5,025 votes, but was not elected. Between 2004 and 2012 works at the Permanent Representation of Malta to the European Union. In 2012, she became a legal advisor in the team of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton.
Roberta Metsola is married to the Finnish politician Uko Metsola. Politics is what brought them together: they met in Malta in 1999 at a student event, as they told the “Times of Malta“ (Times of Malta).
Roberta and Uko have four sons, born in 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2017.
As members of the European People's Party (EPP), the two ran in the 2009 European Parliament elections, becoming the first married couple to run in the same European Parliament elections from two different member states. "It didn't work out. It doesn't matter. I love you," Uko texted Roberta the night after the election, the Finnish press reported.
Success came to Roberta four years later: in the 2013 European elections.
Youngest President of the European Parliament ever elected
Roberta Mezzola was first elected as a member of the European Parliament in 2013, becoming one of the first female MEPs from Malta. Mezzola was re-elected in 2014 and then again in 2019, according to her official biography on the EP website.
She became First Vice-President of the EP in November 2020 and was acting President of the Parliament after the previous President, David Sassoli, passed away. On 18 January 2022, MEPs elected Roberta Mezzola as President of the European Parliament with 458 votes in the first round until the elections in June 2024. She thus became the third female President of the European Parliament after Simone Veil (1979-1982) and Nicole Fontaine (1999-2002).
“I want people to regain their faith and enthusiasm for our project“, were Mezzola's first words after her election. She declared herself a resistance to the anti-European narrative “which is imposed so easily and quickly”. “Disinformation, further amplified during the pandemic, fuels cynicism and cheap solutions of nationalism, authoritarianism, protectionism and isolationism“, she added.
A mandate with challenges
Covid, the war in Ukraine and the corruption scandal in the European Parliament - these are just some of the challenges that marked Roberta Mezzola's first mandate as President of the EP.
"I am in politics to fight corruption, this is a test of our values. There will be no impunity. There will be no sweeping under the carpet," said Roberta Mezzola in the midst of the corruption scandal in the European Parliament in 2022. “Europe is not for sale, the corrupt will face the full weight of the law”, she stressed.
Roberta Mezzola's second term, which is two and a half years, is not expected to be any easier, as she will preside over a European Parliament with a stronger representation of right-wing forces and more Eurosceptic nationalists than before.