Eyes are on the European Parliament in Strasbourg this week as Roberta Metsola is set to be confirmed in the role of president.
The election of the 32nd President of the EP will be the first item on the agenda of the constituent plenary sitting of the 10th legislature starting Tuesday.
Metsola may be the only candidate for president but nominations are open until this evening at 6pm.
Even if uncontested, MEPs will still need to cast their vote of approval – she needs 361 votes to stay in office.
The first round of voting is scheduled to take place on Tuesday at 10am.
If elected, Metsola will occupy the role until January 2027, the first half of the 10th parliamentary term
It has become customary since 1979 for each president to hold office for a renewable period of two and a half years.
The European Parliament is the only democratically elected institution of the European Union. Last June citizens from across the 27 member states elected 720 MEPs.
Its president enjoys executive and representative powers, as well as responsibility for ensuring that the rules of procedure are upheld.
In January 2022 Metsola became the youngest EP president ever when she garnered 458 votes from 690 in the first round, beating candidates fielded by the Greens and the Left.
She had previously occupied the post of First Vice-President since November 2020 and was the parliament’s acting president after David Maria Sassoli fell ill.
Metsola is also the third female president of the EP after Simone Veil and Nicole Fontaine. If elected she will become only the second president to straddle two legislatures, following German S&D MEP Martin Schulz between 2012 and 2017.
Former presidents of the EP include Josep Borrell Fontelles who up until recently occupied the important office of High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, and Antonio Tajani, currently Italian Deputy Prime Minister and leader of Forza Italia.
Von der Leyen’s D-Day
As the EP reconvenes, another major highlight for this week will be the election of the President of the European Commission.
Incumbent Ursula von der Leyen is the only candidate for the post after having secured the Council’s fiat late last June.
Sources at the European Parliament told the Times of Malta that while Metsola may well be on her way to a second mandate, von der Leyen’s “will be a close thing” because not even MEPs from her party are four-square behind her.
Metsola and von der Leyen belong to the European People’s Party, the largest political group in the EP, having garnered 188 seats out of a total of 720.
The Socialists and Democrats remain the second largest group with 136 seats. Following an exchange of views with von der Leyen last week, the S&D’s president Iratxe Garcia Pérez promised her group’s conditional support.
In return, the S&D are requesting the posts of commissioners of housing, the Green Deal and social economy, and workers’ rights and gender equality. They also want von der Leyen to steer away from any deal with the far right.
Following the June 8 European Parliament elections, two new political formations have taken shape to the right of the political spectrum.
With 84 seats in the EP, the Patriots for Europe have displaced Renew Europe, the European Conservatives and Reformists as the third largest group. Its formation was announced by Hungarian PM Viktor Orban among others.
The Europe of Sovereign Nations, another new formation, is the smallest group in the EP with 25 MEPs and include the far-right party Alternative for Germany.
Ultimately von der Leyen may well have to seek the support of Italian PM Giorgia Meloni’s ECR to ensure re-election.
More items on agenda
The rest of the EP’s week will be taken up by the election of 14 vice presidents and five Quaestors.
Together, they make up the EP’s bureau and help in the running of the institution by laying out the rules for a smooth and orderly functioning. The bureau also draws up Parliament’s preliminary draft budget and decides on administrative, staff and organisational matters.
In electing the members of the bureau, political groups aim to ensure that the office holders broadly reflect the numerical strength of the political groups.
Announcements on the appointments to each of parliament’s 24 committees are also expected by the end of the week. The political groups have already reached a broad agreement on the distribution of posts of responsibility.