Roberta Metsola has spoken of the “palpable fear” that Russia’s war against Ukraine could spill into neighbouring EU states.

The European Parliament President revealed her concerns to Times of Malta during her first interview following a historic day of EU solidarity with Ukraine.

In the first of a two-part interview, she also:

• spoke of how she believes EU unity has come as shock to “bully” Vladimir Putin;
• warned countries like Malta to show solidarity "in practice" by ending schemes that give passports to rich Russians;
• described the “tough and hard landing” of being elected European Parliament President six weeks before a war.

Watch the interview below

Speaking hours after the show of support for Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose plea via video link for help was met with a standing ovation, Metsola was asked about the prospect of war hitting neighbouring EU countries. 

“There is a palpable fear,” she said.

“In fact, this is why some of the first steps were made to militarily help these states and the Baltic states, for example, particularly historically because of their geographic location and because of certain courageous decisions that their populations made just after they gained independence from the Soviet Union,” she said.

Metsola invited Zelensky to speak to the European Parliament via webcam on Monday, the sixth day of the Russian invasion.

“We were not sure until the last minute that the connection would work and that President Zelensky would be in a position to address the plenary,” she said.

Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addresses parliament as its president, Roberta Metsola listens on. Photo: European Parliament

His emotional plea for the EU to prove its support by allowing fast-track membership to the bloc was met with a standing ovation in parliament’s hemicycle and a commitment from Metsola to “work towards that goal”.

Reflecting on this decision, she said it was important to “provide a podium” for Zelensky and to take a vote that would show the “almost unanimous” position of the Parliament in recommending giving Ukraine EU candidate status.

Afterwards, she addressed crowds of people gathered outside Parliament – the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic – to hammer home that message.

“The message [to Ukraine] is ‘we stand with you’. And we are going to do everything that we can, but also everything that we’ve perhaps not been prepared to do before in order to deliver what you need,” she said.

Hundreds of people, carrying flags and sunflowers - the symbol of Ukraine's opposition to invasion - gather outside the European Parliament in Brussels. Photo: European Parliament

The "minute” Ukraine files its documents for membership with the European Commission “we will talk to them immediately”. And she said the EU needed to consider the positions of Moldova and Georgia but also to bear in mind that North Macedonia has been waiting to join the bloc.

On whether this openness to EU membership might provoke Russia further, Metsola said the EU’s actions were entirely due to Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “invasion of an independent sovereign country that was unprovoked and not started by anyone”.

“For us, the message is clear that the time of oligarchs and dictators is over,” she said. “That’s the message we want to send to President Putin – and I think he has received it loud and clear.”

'Things are going to escalate'

Within hours of the European Parliament’s message of solidarity, however, Russia warned residents of Kyiv to leave because it was preparing to attack.

Later Ukrainian officials said five people died when Russia hit a TV tower in the capital.

Metsola acknowledged that “things are going to escalate” and that the Ukrainian people would have to continue to stand against a “bully, an aggressor and a violator of international law”.

A fireman extinguishes bodies of passerbys killed after an airstrike that hit Kyiv's main television tower in Kyiv on March 1, 2022. An apparent Russian airstrike hit Kyiv's main television tower in the heart of the Ukrainian capital on March 1, 2022. Photo: AFP

“But again this is why, for the first time ever, instruments were triggered that the European Union had not triggered before, in order to send aid logistics, but also military weapons in order to help the Ukrainians defend themselves.”

She believes the “massive solidarity” across the EU and the “unprecedented sanctions” that have hit “not only Putin but his entourage and every company that is owned or even in an ancillary way, attached to Russia” will have come as a shock to Putin.

“I think at the beginning of this war, President Putin would have banked on the differences between member states going in different directions, and that’s what’s led to the exact opposite happening,” she said.

Metsola has previously called for a ban on selling passports to Russian nationals – an uncomfortable position for Malta, which is continuing to open its citizenship-by-investment scheme to Russia.

Prime Minister Robert Abela has said the scheme’s “due diligence” prevents abuse while Parliamentary Secretary Alex Muscat said it was important to “not have a blanket statement that all Russians are bad people”.

Responding to this stance, Metsola said that all member states should understand “the importance of this moment to bring everybody together and that when you say you’re going to align with all other member states, you really do it in practice”.

Roberta Metsola said in her Times of Malta interview that countries needed to show their solidarity "in practice". Photo: European Parliament

Her moment of solidarity was her first major role since being elected European Parliament President on January 18.

“It’s hard to think or believe that it’s just over six or seven weeks ago that I was elected. It’s been a very tough and hard landing,” she said.

“That also in the context of my predecessor, who died very sadly a few days before the changing of the presidency.

“But I inherited a lot from him, not only in terms of preparedness for work, but also in the way he did politics and the way he brought majorities together.”

Part two of Metsola's interview, where she discusses domestic politics and women in power, will run on Sunday.