Posted at 6:00 a.m.
Q. What do you still call him?
R. Roberta Metsola. Met-so-la… MEP since 2013, this 43-year-old Maltese became on Tuesday the third woman in history elected president of the European Parliament, with 458 votes out of 702. Her many fights for the right of asylum, legalization of cannabis, the rights of LGBT+ people or the freedom of the press earned him to be classified in the progressive fringe of the parliamentary group EPP (European People’s Party), yet quite conservative. She had also been Vice-President of the European Parliament since 2020. “She is an excellent candidate. A woman, young, who comes from a small country. It is very symbolic,” summed up the current EPP President, Manfred Weber.
Q. Nice headliner for the European Union, then?
R. It depends. Because this mother of four children is also a controversial figure because of her anti-abortion positions. Some MEPs did not hide their annoyance at his appointment, even if the European Parliament has no competence in matters of the right to voluntary termination of pregnancy (IVG). Environmentalist David Cormand bluntly used the word “shame” on Twitter on Tuesday. Manon Aubry (radical left) declared for her part that this choice was “a slap in the face sent to all the women who are fighting everywhere in Europe for this right”.
The election of M.me Metsola is all the more ironic that the first woman elected President of the European Parliament, in 1979, was the Frenchwoman Simone Veil, to whom we owe the legalization of abortion in France!
Q. But… isn’t abortion legal everywhere in Europe?
R. Exactly not. Malta is the only EU country to still ban abortion, and does not seem to be backing down on this issue. Regardless of the situation, women who have an abortion or doctors who have performed an abortion risk up to three years in prison there.
It’s hardly better in Poland, mind you. Abortion is only authorized in cases of rape, incest or danger to the life of the mother. In 2016, the government tried to ban it completely, before restricting it further by also removing the right to abort in the event of a serious malformation of the fetus.
Ireland was the last EU country to authorize abortion, in 2019, after a referendum won by 66% by the prochosers. A huge step forward for this country attached to Catholic traditions.
Q. Why is Malta still resisting?
R. Maltese society is conservative and Catholic. Women who need to have abortions call on foreign doctors or order abortion pills by mail, with all the risks that entails. Apparently, the Maltese government does not intend to change the texts or the sanctions provided for abortion. He would also have rejected a bill to this effect no later than last May.
Strangely, this archipelago of 450,000 inhabitants is very open to other social issues. Same-sex marriage has been permitted there since 2017, as well as the adoption of children by same-sex couples. The change of marital status is also permitted by simple declaration, which makes it a particularly progressive country in terms of the rights of transgender people.
Q. Paradoxical, to say the least. Just like the appointment of Mme Metsola, knowing that the rest of the EU is close…
R. Indeed. But the European Parliament is not close to a contradiction. There are sometimes significant differences even within the major parliamentary groups, each made up of several national parties. For example, the French and German Greens do not have the same vision on phasing out nuclear power, even if they are united under the same banner. Ditto for the liberal/centrist parties, which do not all share the same ideas on the repayment of the debt. In the EPP group, the Maltese Nationalist Party of Mme Metsola opposes abortion, while the Greek party New Democracy (ND) is officially pro-choice. This says a lot about the divisions that remain in Europe, in addition to making the debates difficult to read for ordinary mortals.
Q. Good. And what do we do with this Roberta?
R. Mme Metsola is a professional. Reacting to the many reservations caused by her convictions, the new president assured that her duty “will be to represent the position of Parliament”, including on sexual and reproductive rights. The fact remains that his election is perceived by many as a very bad signal sent by the European Union…
Sources: Europedirect, vie-publique.fr, The world, France Inter, touteleurope.eu, RTL, lunion.fr, International mail, ekathimerini.com, CNN