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18 Jan, 2022

Liberals increase their influence in European Parliament

On 18 January, Members of the European Parliament voted for a new President and new Vice-Presidents of the European Parliament.

Maltese Roberta Metsola MEP (European People’s Party) was elected President of the European Parliament with a majority of 458 out of 616 votes. She becomes the third woman in this role after the French politician and former liberal group leader Simone Veil, as well as Nicole Fontaine. She is also the youngest and first Maltese politician to lead the European Parliament. She will be President for a 2.5-year term succeeding David Sassoli (S&D) whose mandate would have ended after his sudden death on 11 January.

Three ALDE Party MEPs - ALDE Party Vice-President Dita Charanzová (ANO, CZ), Nicola Beer (FDP, DE) and Michal Šimečka (Progressive Slovakia, SK) were elected European Parliament Vice-Presidents, out of 18 candidates. For Šimečka, this is an important milestone as he is the first European Parliament Vice-President from Slovakia. For European liberals, this also means an additional seat at the VPs table compared to the 2019-2021 period.

Liberals also negotiated important agenda points with their  counterparts as part of their support to Metsola’s presidency through a “Mid-Term Agreement” for the period 2022-2024, which you can find here.

The agreement aims to move Europe forward and to tackle issues common to all Europeans, such as climate change, migration, women’s rights, health, the economy, social rights, rule of law, the digital transition and Europe’s security and foreign policy challenges. It also addresses institutional reforms to strengthen our democracy, such as transnational lists and a reform of voting rights in the European Council, which is needed to intensify European cooperation.

There were many congratulations to this newly elected European Parliament Bureau, including from ALDE Party Acting Co-President Ilhan Kyuchyuk, well as messages from the re-elected Vice-Presidents Charanzová and Beer and newly elected Vice-President Šimečka.

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