Roberta Metsola is 42 years old. If this Maltese is chosen in January 2022 by MEPs to succeed the current President of the European Parliament, David Sassoli, she will be the youngest president ever to head the institution. She would also be the third woman only, after Simone Veil and Nicole Fontaine. This is all pretty positive.
Roberta Metsola is the candidate of the European People’s Party, the right of the hemicycle. She is part of her less conservative bangs. For eight years, she has indeed regularly defended the rights of LGBT + communities on the benches of Parliament. She knows her files very well, like the mysteries of Brussels. These are other positive points.
Except that there is one thing that really does not pass: his visceral opposition to abortion. This is a widely held opinion in Malta, one of the last countries in the Union with Andorra where abortion remains completely illegal – even in cases of rape, incest, fetal disease or danger to the child. the mother. Roberta Metsola is on this line: in Parliament, she systematically votes against all resolutions defending the right to abortion and contraception. In September, she even abstained from voting on a text calling on the European Commission to criminalize violence against women.
Even if the President of Parliament does not have much power, even if Roberta Metsola has promised not to take a position on these subjects once elected, her election would be a disastrous symbol, a setback for the defense of women’s rights. Emmanuel Macron himself, questioned on the subject during his press conference on December 9, was very firm. He urged MEPs to choose their next leader “with consistency” and “in fidelity with their fights”. Parliamentarians regularly criticize Poland for its infringements of the right to abortion: a variable geometry position would therefore be difficult to read.
There is no other candidate for the Presidency of Parliament who can do the job to avoid this pitfall. The radical left and the Eurosceptics have come up with a name, but they are two very small groups in the ranks of Parliament. Those with the most representatives after the People’s Party, that is to say the Social Democrats allied with environmentalists and Renew centrists, on Tuesday gave up pushing a competitor into the arena.
In return, they negotiate by virtue of the small political arrangements that make up the daily life of the European institutions. Because, in this case, it is not only the presidency of the Parliament which is at stake. There are also the posts of vice-presidents, quaestors, chairmen of committees, etc. Each group wants to secure its piece of power. The election will take place by secret ballot during the next plenary session, scheduled for January 18.