The matter was quickly settled. The agenda for the first plenary session of the new European Parliament in Strasbourg on 16 July included the election of the institution’s president. Only two candidates were put forward: the outgoing president, Roberta Metsola, and Irene Montero, a Spanish politician from the ranks of the left-wing Podemos party. Elected to the Spanish parliament in 2015, Montero joined the Sanchez II government in 2020 as minister for equality. Before the vote, the two candidates had five minutes to address the MEPs.
Parliament must be strong in a strong union.
First to speak--in alphabetical order--Roberta Metsola (EPP, Malta) reaffirmed her desire to “work to improve the construction of Europe” and detailed a programme centred on the need for the European Parliament “to build bridges between what citizens expect of Europe and what we can offer them,” to affirm parliament’s role in legislative procedures and to improve parliamentarians’ powers of scrutiny and investigation. “The parliament must be strong in a strong union,” she insisted. "A parliament of integrity, openness and transparency to which citizens can turn.”
Metsola insisted on the need to stand by Ukraine, to “make the voice of humanity heard in the Middle East” and to remain at the forefront of the fight against climate change.
Montero’s militant speech
Irene Montero, candidate of the Left Group in the European Parliament (GUE/NGL)--aware of her slim chances of being elected--gave a more militant speech in which she pleaded for “a Europe of peace that puts an end to the genocide against the Palestinian people, a feminist, green, anti-racist and anti-fascist Europe that defends workers’ rights and works for social justice.” Referring to European support for Ukraine, she also denounced “the consensus of war imposed on the peoples of Europe.”
“We know that wars always involve great suffering for workers and the working classes,” she went on. “The escalation of war aggravates the social crisis,” she continued, adding that the war only benefited the American military-industrial complex. She went on to criticise European migration policy based on “the idea that migrants are a threat and on the need for labour” and also called for sanctions against Israel, a “genocidal state.”
562 votes out of 720 for Metsola
The vote--by secret ballot--began at 10.20am. To be elected, a candidate must obtain a majority of the votes cast in the first three ballots. Thereafter, the candidate who receives the most votes is elected. The result was announced just over two hours later, after just one round of voting. In 2019, when the newly elected European Parliament returned, it took two rounds of voting to elect David Sassoli (S&D) from Italy as its president. In January 2022, during the half-term election, Metsola was elected in the first ballot.
This time, she received 562 votes, compared to 61 for her opponent. 699 out of 720 MPs took part in the vote, with 623 valid votes cast.
Metsola’s term of office will run until January 2027.
This article was originally published in .