Roberta Metsola elected new European Parliament president
On Tuesday, MEPs elected Roberta Metsola (EPP, MT) as President of the European Parliament until 2024, with 458 votes in the first round.
Roberta Metsola won the election in the first voting round, where she received an absolute majority of 458 votes out of 690 cast in the remote secret vote, among three candidates. At the beginning of the day’s proceedings, Kosma Złotowski (ECR, PL) withdrew his candidacy, bringing the number of candidates down to three, the European Parliament said in a press release.
President Metsola will lead the Parliament in the second half of the current legislative term, until a new Parliament is constituted following the 2024 European Elections.
Born in Malta in 1979, Roberta Metsola who has been an MEP since 2013, is the youngest EP President ever elected. She became First Vice-President in November 2020, and was Parliament’s acting President after President Sassoli passed away on 11 January. She is the third female President of the European Parliament, after Simone Veil (1979-1982) and Nicole Fontaine (1999- 2002).