The members of the Social Democrat group in the European Parliament re-elected by acclamation on Wednesday 17 November the Spaniard Iratxe García Pérez as President for the second half of the European Parliament’s mandate. Ms García Pérez was the only candidate.
“Citizens want more Europe and better public services”, García Pérez said, citing the Next Generation EU recovery plan, the European Green Deal and the implementation of the European pillar of social rights as successes of the current parliamentary term.
At the end of October, the centre-right Renew Europe group elected Frenchman Stéphane Séjourné as its new leader, replacing Romanian Dacian Cioloș, who returned to the Romanian political arena (see EUROPE 12816/21).
A few days earlier, the Christian Democrat EPP group had reappointed German Manfred Weber (see EUROPE 12811/31).
In the other political groups in the Parliament, discussions are underway on the renewal of their presidencies at mid-term. In the Greens/EFA group, discussions took place on Tuesday. According to our information, the two current co-presidents, Ska Keller from Germany and Philippe Lamberts from Belgium, are standing for re-election. An internal election will be held in early December.
The sovereignist ECR group has also launched a procedure to renew the group’s co-chairmanship, currently held by Ryszard Legutko of Poland and Raffaele Fitto of Italy. Elected representatives wishing to stand for election have until Tuesday 23 November to do so, but internally they are not expecting any upheaval. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)