The Maltese MEP and member of the EPP Roberta Metsola she was elected president of the European Parliament in the first round. There were 458 votes in favor for Metsola, an overwhelming majority. The number of voters was 690, the blank and void ballots were 74, the votes cast were 617.
Metsola, 43, is the youngest president of the European Parliament and was elected on her birthday. MEPs sang “Happy Birthday” after his election. The candidate of the Greens, the Swedish Alice Kuhnke, obtained 101 votes, while that of La Sinistra, the Spanish one Sira Rego, 57.
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“The first thing I would like to do, as president, is to take up the legacy he left us David Sassoli. David was a fighter for Europe, for us, for this Parliament. He believed in the power of Europe to forge a new path in this world. Thank you David. “This was declared – in Italian – by the newly elected president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, in her first speech.
Who is Roberta Metsola
Roberta Metsola, the new president of the European Parliament, is a Maltese lawyer of the Partit Nazzjonalista, married to a Finn, Ukko Metsola. Born on January 18, 1979, she studied at the University of Malta and then attended the College of Europe in Bruges, in Flanders, the cradle of the community elite. As a student, when her name was Roberta Tedesco Triccas, she was active in associations, becoming general secretary of the organization of European democratic students, in 2002-2003.
Via social explains that she spent “years” “actively campaigning” for Malta’s accession to the EU, which arrived in 2004. The Maltese press reports that she and Ukko met when they were students and that one of the first appointments was a demonstration in Helsinki against the Belarusian regime of Aleksandr Lukashenko. The couple has four children; he is now vice president of the US group of cruises Royal Caribbean Group.
Specializing in European law, Roberta Metsola worked for the Permanent Representation of Malta in Brussels from 2004 to 2012, first as attaché for legal cooperation and then as head of the Justice and Home Affairs unit. In 2009 she is a candidate for the European Championships in Malta, like her husband, who runs in Finland with Kokoomus, a National Coalition Party, a member of the EPP: the Metsola were the first couple to compete in the European Championships in two different countries. In 2009, however, neither of them succeeds in the enterprise: on the basis of a partnership agreement, Ukko leaves politics forever.
She then joined, as legal advisor, the team of the then EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Catherine Ashton; she left the role in 2013, when she managed to get herself elected MEP, occupying the seat vacated by the Maltese nationalist politician Simon Busuttil. She was one of the first Maltese women to become an MEP, being re-elected in 2014. She has been the first Vice-President of Parliament for two and a half years for the European People’s Party. For Malta, the smallest state in the EU, having a citizen at the top of the Chamber for the first time is a historic success.