“I will honour the memory of President David Sassoli by defending Europe without fail”, said Malta’s Roberta Metsola in her inaugural speech as President of the European Parliament, on Tuesday 18 January. Following an agreement between the three main European Parliament groups on 17 January (see EUROPE 12870/2), she was elected in the first round with 458 votes in her favour. In the three majority groups, only a few MEPs said they would not vote for the Maltese.
Addressing her colleagues in the hemicycle, the new European Parliament President recalled her will to defend European values and to give the institution its best voice. “Europe matters, the European Parliament matters”, she stressed.
She said she was proud to be the third woman elected to head the European Parliament, twenty years after Nicole Fontaine’s mandate and forty years after Simone Veil’s.
Speaking to the press, Roberta Metsola insisted that “the European Parliament’s position on women’s reproductive rights will be hers”. Her vote against the resolution on the recognition of gender violence including paragraphs on the right to abortion is to be seen “in a Maltese context”, the President justified. “I am President of the European Parliament now and this report (adopted by the Parliament in September) will be the position I will promote everywhere”, she insisted.
Reception
The EPP group Chair Manfred Weber (Germany) congratulated his colleague on her election and wished her a happy birthday. The President turned 43 on the day of her election.
Ms Metsola’s commitment was enough to convince the S&D and Renew Europe groups, who say they have guarantees regarding her commitments. “I ask you to continue the legacy of David Sassoli, who worked for a Europe of greater solidarity and justice, close to those who need it most. If you work in this direction, you can count on the support of the Socialist Group”, said the S&D President, Iratxe Garcia Perez.
Stéphane Séjourné (Renew Europe, France) said he “had guarantees” when it came to Ms Metsola’s commitment, but wanted to go further. He had asked her to sign the ‘Simone Veil Pact’. It is a commitment by the signatory countries to amend their legislation on women’s rights in line with best practice (see EUROPE 12398/11).
The French MEP, Marie-Pierre Vedrenne, from the same group also reacted to the election as she left the hemicycle: “The priorities that we set out in the Paris Declaration are included in this majority agreement. That was our goal”, she told EUROPE.
The Greens/EFA congratulated the MEP, but disagreed with the way the three main groups reached the consensus. “It was just about distribution of positions [...] Those who are going to suffer from that are the progressive groups, the Left and us”, said Philippe Lamberts (Greens/EFA, Belgium).
The EPP, S&D and Renew Europe groups agreed on the allocation of vice-presidential posts by signing their tripartite agreement and did not invite the Greens/EFA to the table, according to several members of the group.
The latter regrets the choice of the S&D to turn to the right rather than to the left of the European Parliament. According to a member of the group interviewed by EUROPE after the election, the Greens/EFA had offered to the S&D to support their candidate, had there been one.
Election of Vice-Presidents
As expected after the agreement between the three main parties, the S&D group will benefit from five vice-president posts. MEPs elected Socialists Eva Kaili (Greece), Evelyn Regner (Austria), Katarina Barley (Germany), Pedro Silva Pereira (Portugal) and Pina Picierno (Italy) as Vice-Presidents in the first round.
The group was given the Chair of the Conference of Committee Chairs as well as a special committee on Covid-19.
The EPP retains three positions, which will be filled by Ewa Kopacz (Poland), Othmar Karas (Austria) and Rainer Wieland (Germany), also elected in the first round.
The Renew Europe group increased from one seat to three, with the election of Dita Charanzová (Czech Republic) in the first round, Michal Šimečka (Slovakia) and Nicola Beer (Germany) in the second round.
The second round also saw the European Conservatives and Reformists MEP, Roberts Zīle (Latvia), take up a vice-presidential post. According to several sources, the three majority groups had agreed to reserve one position for the Conservatives, one for the Greens/EFA and one for The Left.
Two vice-presidents were still to be elected on the evening of 18 January. EUROPE will return to this in its next edition. (Original version in French by Léa Marchal with the editorial staff)