Roberta Metsola (Ppe) is the new president of the European Parliament. Maltese politics was elected in the first vote in Strasbourg; the votes, cast by secret ballot, were 690, blank ballots 74, votes cast 616. The majority was 309 votes. Metsola got 458 votes, the Swedish of the Greens Alice Kuhnke 101, the Spanish of the Left Sira Rego 57. “Thank you, Members of the European Parliament, fellow MEPs. I will work and do my best, as President of Parliament, to collect the legacy of David Sassoli, che was a fighter for Europe and for this Parliament ”. These are the first warm considerations of Roberta Metsola who spoke immediately after the election. The new president recalled the journalists “Daphne Caruana Galizia and Jan Kuciak. Your struggle for justice and truth - he commented - is also ours ”.
Robert Metsol
The new president Metsola said that if many continue "looking at our institution, others will continue to test its limits. We have to fight against the anti-European narrative that takes hold so easily. Nationalism, authoritarianism are false solutions that offer no solutions ”. "Her task - continued the newly elected - will be to unite people, continuing the work of the founding fathers, who brought us from the ashes of the Holocaust to peace and prosperity. This Parliament matters. Those who try to deducating Europe know that this Parliament is an institution they will have to deal with ”.
The youngest president of the EU Parliament
From Maltese, 43 years old, candidate since Ppe to give new impetus to the political group, Metsola has been vice president for the last two and a half years and interim president after Sassoli's death. Graduated from the College of Europe, Metsola held the role of legal clerk in the Maltese office of the EU from 2004 to 2012 and that of consultant to Catherine Ashton, former European Commissioner for Trade. Elected a Brussels in 2013, the MEP participated both in the European Parliament Intergroup on Children's Rights and in the Commission on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE), as coordinator.
Precisely by virtue of this capacity she was shadow rapporteur for the EPP on the "EU roadmap against homophobia and discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity ”. Table approved by Parliament in 2014 and the basis of many recent anti-discrimination laws.
(Photo Roberta Metsola Facebook page)
