It only took two ballots for MEPs to elect Italian Social Democrat David Maria Sassoli as head of the European Parliament on Wednesday morning, 3 July.
After a first round of voting against Ska Keller, Greens/EFA candidate, Sira Rego, GUE/NGL candidate, and Jan Zahradil, ECR group, the Italian candidate obtained an absolute majority of votes, with 345 votes in favour (the majority was set at 334), followed by the Czech Conservative, with 160 votes, then the German Greens/EFA, with 119 votes and finally the Spanish radical left, with 43 votes.
A former journalist and TV man, the 63-year-old Italian, from the DP, joined the European Parliament in 2009 and was elected Vice-President in 2014. With his election, there is therefore also an agreement reached in recent days between the Heads of Government on appointments to senior European positions that the MEPs implicitly validated, since the Twenty-Eight concluded in Brussels that the European Parliament's seat should partly revert, for two and a half years, to the S&D group, then to the EPP.
Immediately after his election, however, David Sassoli defended himself as the man of the Council of the EU and posed as a man of the European Parliament, whose different sensibilities he will make people listen to and pass on the message, starting when the elected representatives will have to confirm, in two weeks' time, the appointment of Ursula Von der Leyen to the presidency of the Commission.
A decision "that has sparked a lot of debate within the groups", acknowledged the European Parliament President, who considers it normal that the political groups should be able to "express their judgment". In addition, some reactions in the groups on Tuesday evening - a "real display" according to some - show that the European Parliament is "able to make choices in complete autonomy".
Does this mean that MEPs will have difficulty supporting the German EPP? The Italian did not reply to it on Wednesday, but expressed his personal disappointment that the Spitzenkandidaten system had not been respected. "We thought the lead candidate system was legitimate; however, this is not the case; it is the prerogative of the Council of the EU; therefore, a dialogue at the beginning of the legislature will be needed to improve things", he said.
The Italian promised to make the institution even more transparent and to bring it closer to citizens and political actors in the Member States. He also promised to keep the European Parliament's door "always open" to NGOs, while some of them were campaigning on 3 July in Strasbourg for an end to the criminalisation of migrant rescue operations (see other news).
On migration, the new Social Democratic President has also pledged to remind the Council of the EU of its responsibilities and its obligation to act, such as "changing the Dublin Regulation".
Iratxe García's method questioned
David Sassoli's candidacy, although approved without enormous difficulties on Wednesday morning, particularly by the EPP and Renew groups, has, in any case, created controversy within the S&D group itself.
While Bulgarian and PES President Sergei Stanishev was being approached, he finally did not submit an application. According to several sources, it was the group's president, Iratxe García of Spain, who imposed the Italian's candidacy on herself even before a group meeting discussed it; she submitted her name without consultation before the deadline for submission.
This decision provoked the great anger of several delegations and benefited Ska Keller, who probably gleaned the votes of the S&D. The Greens/EFA candidate had in fact obtained 133 votes in the first round, then 119, while the group had only 74 elected members.
The 14 Vice-Presidents also elected
On Wednesday, the European Parliament also elected its Vice-Presidents. In all, 17 candidates were nominated by the political groups, 10 women and 7 men, for only 14 places.
All the EPP candidates were elected in the first round - namely: Hungarian Lívia Járóka, Austrian Othmar Karas, Polish Ewa Bożena Kopacz, German Rainer Wieland and Irish Mairead McGuinness - as well as the three S&D candidates: German Katarina Barley, Hungarian Klára Dobrev and Portuguese Pedro Silva Perreira.
The two candidates presented by the RE group, Germany's Nicola Beer and Czech Dita Charanzovà, were also elected in the first round and in the Greens/EFA group, Finland's Heidi Hautala.
Dimitrios Papadimoulis (GUE/NGL, Greek) and Marcel Kolaja (Greens/EFA, Czech Republic) obtained the majority necessary for their election in the second round. The Italian Fabio Massimo Castaldo of the 5-star Movement, who sits among the non-attached Members, has been elected after a third electronic ballot. Zdzisław Krasnodębski (ECR, Poland) has not been elected.
The fears expressed by the Chairman of the Identity and Democracy (ID) Group in the European Parliament before the vote were realised. The two candidates presented by the group, Italian Mara Bizzotto and Finnish Laura Huhtasaari, were not selected.
“If you really consider this assembly to be a democratic assembly, if you really want to respect the will of the European citizens who have given us millions of votes (...) support the candidates we present because minorities also have the right to be heard", Marco Zanni told the newly elected European Parliament President and other political groups.
Between the two rounds, Marco Zanni finally announced the withdrawal of Ms Huhtasaari's candidacy, which led to the reprinting of the ballots and a postponement of the vote. Far right MEPs left the room before the third ballot because they were angry about the decision to hold an electronic ballot.
The European Parliament has also validated the numerical composition of its parliamentary committees (http://bit.ly/2LCRcQ3 ), already detailed in our columns (see EUROPE 12285/2). On Thursday 4 July, he will still have to appoint his Quaestors. (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic and Marion Fontana)