site.btaRoberta Metsola: The New Old EP President

The youngest President of the European Parliament (EP) ever elected. The first Maltese citizen to hold the post. One of the first Maltese women MEPs. The third female President of the European Parliament. A lawyer specializing in European law. Wife and mother of four sons.

That is only a brief description of Roberta Metsola, the new old President of the European Parliament, who today received a second term in office. She was backed by 562 MEPs in the 720-seat EP. Her rival for the presidency was Spaniard Irene Montero (Left). 

Who is she

Born in Malta in 1979, she is a lawyer by training and has specialized in European law and policy. She completed an Erasmus exchange in France and graduated from the University of Malta and the College of Europe in Bruges.

During her student years, she campaigned actively for Malta's EU membership and participated in various organizations. In 2002-2003, when she was 23 years old, she was Secretary General of European Democrat Students. In 2004, she ran in the European elections and won 5,025 votes but was not elected. Between 2004 and 2012, she worked at the Permanent Representation of Malta to the European Union. In 2012, she became a legal adviser in the team of the European High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton.

She is married to Finnish politician Uko Metsola. Politics is what brought the two together: they met in Malta in 1999 at a student event, as they told the Times of Malta. 

The couple has four sons, born in 2007, 2008, 2011 and 2017.

As members of the European People's Party (EPP), they both stood in the 2009 European Parliament elections, becoming the first married couple to run simultaneously from two different Member States. "It didn't work out. It doesn't matter. I love you," Uko texted Roberta the evening after the election, as reported in the Finnish press.

Success came to Roberta four years later, in the 2013 European elections.

The youngest President of the European Parliament ever elected

Roberta Metsola was first elected to the European Parliament in 2013, becoming one of the first female MEPs from Malta. She was re-elected in 2014 and then again in 2019, according to her official biography on the EP's website.

She became first vice-president in November 2020 and was acting president of Parliament after the previous president, David Sassoli, died. On January 18, 2022, MEPs elected Metsola as EP President until the June 2024 elections by 458 votes in the first round. She thus became the third woman President of the EP after Simone Vail (1979-1982) and Nicole Fontaine (1999-2002).

A mandate full of challenges

COVID, the Russian war of aggression in Ukraine and the corruption scandal that shook the EP are only some of the challenges that market Metsola's first term as leader of the EU legislature. Amid the EP corruption scandal, she said she was in politics to fight corruption and called it a test for the European values. 

Her first words after the re-election were that "this will remain the house of every person in Europe. "Together, we must stand up for the politics of hope, for the dream that is Europe. For the promise of our foremothers and fathers that is yet unfulfilled." 

Her second term of two and a half years will unlikely be any easier because she will preside over a European Parliament with a stronger participation of right-wing and Euro-skeptic nationalists.