The European Parliament has elected the Maltese People’s MEP Roberta Metzola with the support of the three large groups to lead the European Parliament for the remaining two and a half years of the 2019-2024 legislature. Metsola, who turns 43 this Tuesday, has had the support of the popular, social democrats and liberals to gather a majority of the same colors that in 2019 raised his predecessor to the presidency of the European Parliament, David Sassoli.
After weeks of negotiations between the three groups, the Social Democrats and the Liberals announced on Monday afternoon that they would support the popular candidate; in the case of the socialist caucus, in exchange for more weight among the 14 vice-presidencies of the institution and other leadership positions in the European Parliament, although without his desired relief from the secretary general of the institution, the popular Klaus Welle.
In addition to Metsola, the other three deputies who ran for office were the Swedish Greens Alice Bah Kuhnke, the Spanish Left Sira Rego and the Polish conservative Kosma Zlotowski. After Simon Veill, Metsola is the second woman to chair the European Parliament.
A candidate needs to obtain an absolute majority of valid votes cast (half plus one) to be elected; If this margin was not achieved in the first round, a second and a third round would have been held, to which the same candidates could present themselves again and whose results would be announced at 1:00 p.m. and 4:30 p.m., respectively.
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