Strasbourg [France], July 17: The European Parliament on Tuesday overwhelmingly elected Roberta Metsola for another term as its president, with 562 votes in her favour.
Thanking the assembled EU legislators for their support in her victory speech, Metsola urged the parliament to recapture their "belief that ours is a Europe for all." The vote to re-elect Metsola for another two-and-a-half years took place in the first sitting of the EU legislature's new term at the parliament's seat in the eastern French city of Strasbourg.
Her opponent Irene Montero, put forward by the The Left parliamentary group, only received 61 votes.
In all, 623 votes were cast. Seventy-six ballots were left blank.
Metsola received around 90 percent of the vote, the biggest majority for a president since direct elections to the parliament began in 1979.
Metsola is the third woman to hold the office. Previous female presidents of the European Parliament include France's Nicole Fontaine and the Holocaust survivor Simone Veil.
In her speech, Metsola said that Europe cannot be "a better place if too many women are still unable to feel part of it." "Too many women are still abused, still beaten, still murdered in our Europe. Too many women are still fighting for rights. Too many women still earn less than men for the same job," she said.
EU lawmakers had been expected to back Metsola, a Maltese member of the centre-right European People's Party (EPP), after the EPP won 188 seats in the European elections in June.
Metsola was first elected president of the parliament on January 18, 2022 as the successor to the Italian social democrat David Sassoli, who died in office. She has been a member of the parliament since 2013.
Metsola was also the first leader of an EU institution to visit Kiev after the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. She has repeatedly called on EU countries to send Ukraine more military aid.
The parliament's president chairs sittings of the EU legislature, maintains order during debates, signs laws, and represents the institution internationally. Metsola's new term comes after European elections characterized by a shift to the right in the EU and the striking reorganization of far-right groups in the parliament.
In the wake of the elections, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban launched a new alliance of far-right parties, bringing together his Fidesz party, the far-right League party, which is part of the Italian government, and France's National Rally (RN), to form the parliament's third-biggest group, the Patriots for Europe.
The far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) also announced the formation of a new right-wing group called the Europe of Sovereign Nations. The group is currently the smallest in the EU legislature, made up of 25 EU lawmakers, 14 of whom are from the AfD.
The parliament is already looking ahead to Thursday when the EU legislators will decide on whether to elect Ursula von der Leyen for a second term as European Commission President.
Source: Qatar Tribune