BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Malta MEP Roberta Metsola is the big favorite to become the first woman to chair the European Parliament in 20 years on Tuesday.
The Maltese elected, member of the European People’s Party (EPP), the center-right group in the Strasbourg Parliament, should succeed Italian socialist David Sassoli, who died a week ago at the age of 65, at the head of the assembly of 705 members.
David Sassoli should have left his post this week under a power-sharing agreement between his group, the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats (S&D), and the EPP, halfway through his five-year term.
“It’s time for the European Parliament to be led by a woman,” Roberta Metsola, 42, said on Twitter. MEP since 2013, the Maltese, known for her anti-abortion positions, notably called during her campaign on MEPs to come out of their “bubbles” in Strasbourg and Brussels to listen to the concerns of European citizens.
The Parliament of Strasbourg, which votes on legislative proposals and decides on the Union’s budget, has only twice been chaired by women since the first election of its members by direct universal suffrage in 1979, the French women Simone Veil and Nicole Fontaine.
To become the third woman to hold this largely honorary position, Roberta Metsola will have to convince her peers during a short presentation on Tuesday morning, like the three other candidates: the Swedish ecologist Alice Kuhnke (The Greens), the Spaniard Sira Rego (group of The Left) and the Polish Kosma Zlotowski (group of European Conservatives and Reformists).
Neither the S&D group nor the centrist group Renew Europe, to which French President Emmanuel Macron’s La République en Marche party belongs, have presented a candidate.
Voting will be held in a maximum of four rounds.
(Written by John Chalmers, French version Tangi Salaün)