Robert Abela doubled down on his support for Roberta Metsola’s re-election as European Parliament president on Tuesday afternoon, once again insisting that it was a matter of “national interest”, despite the abstention of two Labour MEPs.

Abela was speaking just hours after Metsola was re-elected in a landslide vote.

In comments to the state broadcaster, Abela said that national interest overshadowed his well-documented disagreements with Metsola and that he had “strongly supported” her bid for re-election.

When it came down to it, Abela said, “the choice was clear. On the one hand, we had these disagreements, but on the other was a Maltese national being called upon to fill one of the EU’s highest posts.

“In my case, the national interest definitively lay in my strongly supporting her nomination.”

Labour MEPs 'didn't vote against Metsola'

But Abela also came to the defence of the Labour MEPs who adopted a different stance, with Alex Agius Saliba and Daniel Attard both abstaining from the vote. It is not yet known whether the party's third MEP, Thomas Bajada, followed suit.

The pair, Abela said, “also didn’t vote against (Metsola’s nomination) and they gave their respective explanations of the vote”.

Shortly after the vote, Agius Saliba wrote on Facebook that he could not support Metsola's nomination "because [I do not agree with her] on matters of principle and also because over the past two years she acted in a way that is contrary [to what I believe].”

Meanwhile, Daniel Attard described Metsola as seeking her "personal interest before [her] nation's".

This is not the first time that Abela has couched his support for Metsola’s nomination as a matter of national interest.

Last month he told Times of Malta that it would be “inconsistent” of him not to back Metsola for a second term, saying that he would “let the national interest guide direct (his) decision” as he had done when backing her initial bid in 2021.