Roberta Metsola is re-elected president of the European Parliament

The 720 Members of the European Parliament will be led by Roberta Metsola for the next two years and a half.

Transcript

00:00Roberta Mezzola has been re-elected by absolute majority as president of the European Parliament

00:06during the opening session of the new term.

00:08The Maltese politician who had 562 votes in favor will represent the institution for the

00:14next two and a half years.

00:16This last mandate we have learnt that the future is anything but predictable.

00:22But come what may, I will keep working with all of you to face the tests when they do

00:30One by one, the MEPs cast their votes to the ballots placed in the corners of the hemicycle.

00:35Mezzola, member of the EPP, has been able to build a consensus in a difficult time for

00:41the parliament and the initial discrepancies over her candidacy, like her position on abortion,

00:46have been diluted.

00:47But she will have to focus on reconstructing the damage caused by the corruption scandal

00:52known as Qatargate.

00:54Mezzola brawled in some reforms, but for several MEPs, they are not enough.

01:00There were issues that had to be tackled about transparency, the risk of interferences and

01:06of corruption, and there were steps taken by Mezzola that we supported, others that

01:11still need to be taken and that we will need to push for in the new mandate so that we

01:17are sure that we are protected from the risk of foreign interferences and the corruption

01:24risks that are everywhere in institutions and the parliament needs to be fully defended

01:29from this risk.

01:30She had only one opponent, the newly elected MEP from the left, Irene Montero, the former

01:36Spanish minister who ran symbolically, had 61 votes.

01:41After this election, the new European Parliament will start working with the first big task

01:44in mind, the election of the President of the European Commission on Thursday.

01:49The 10th term has 54% new MEPs and for the first time, it has reduced the number of women

01:55elected to 39%.

01:57It has 8 political groups, one more than in the past 5 years.