23 Facts About Roberta Metsola

Roberta Metsola is a Maltese politician serving as President of the European Parliament since January 2022.

The Tedesco Triccas family stems from Swieqi near St Julian's, Malta, and Roberta Metsola grew up with her father Geoffrey, her mother Rita and her two sisters Ann and Lisa in Gzira.

Roberta Metsola studied at St Joseph School in Sliema, St Aloysius' College sixth form, and she graduated in law from the University of Malta in 2003 and obtained a diploma in European studies from the College of Europe in Bruges in 2004.

Roberta Tedesco Triccas and her Finnish husband Ukko Metsola met in 1999 and married in Rabat, Malta, on 1 October 2005.

Roberta Metsola has been active since youth within Malta's Partit Nazzjonalista, serving within the party's international secretariat and volunteering with the PN's election arm ELCOM.

In October 2004 Roberta Metsola joined the Permanent Representation of Malta to the European Union in Brussels, headed by Richard Cachia Caruana, where she worked for 8 years as legal and judicial cooperation attache, participating for Malta in the negotiations of the Lisbon Treaty and working on files such as the set-up of the European Asylum Support Office in Malta.

Roberta Metsola ran again for the 2009 European elections, without being elected.

On 24 April 2013 Roberta Metsola successfully contested the casual election to fill the vacated seat of Simon Busuttil, becoming one of Malta's first female Members of the European Parliament.

Roberta Metsola was the parliament's rapporteur on the European Border and Coastguard Regulation in 2019 and was co-rapporteur on an anti-SLAPP report in 2021.

Roberta Metsola co-authored a non-binding report on the European migrant crisis in 2016, aimed at establishing a "binding and mandatory legislative approach" on resettlement and new EU-wide "readmission" agreements which should take precedence over bilateral ones between EU and non-EU countries.

From 2016 until 2017, Roberta Metsola was part of the Parliament's Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion that investigated the Panama Papers revelations and tax avoidance schemes more broadly.

In 2020 Roberta Metsola considered contesting the leadership of Partit Nazzjonalista, but finally decided against it.

In October 2020, in the discussion in LIBE on a parliamentary resolution on "the rule of law and fundamental rights in Bulgaria", Roberta Metsola tabled amendments on behalf of the EPP which were widely interpreted as shielding Bulgaria's EPP government from criticism, including by proposing to remove references to Venice Commission findings and to the misuse of EU funds and high-level corruption allegations directly involving Prime Minister Boyko Borisov.

In November 2020, Roberta Metsola was elected as First Vice-President of the European Parliament, replacing Mairead McGuinness, who had become European Commissioner.

Roberta Metsola was the first Maltese MEP to become a vice-president.

In November 2021, Roberta Metsola was chosen as EPP candidate to succeed David Sassoli as President of the European Parliament on the expiry of his term as president in January 2022.

On Sassoli's death, Roberta Metsola became the acting President of the European Parliament.

On 18 January 2022, on her 43rd birthday, Roberta Metsola was elected President of the European Parliament for a two-and-a-half-year term.

Roberta Metsola was elected in the first round of voting, receiving an absolute majority of 458 votes out of the 690 cast.

On her election, Roberta Metsola became the youngest ever President, the first Maltese person to hold the office, and the first woman President since 2002.

Roberta Metsola made a statement days after being present as Belgian police searched the residence of Greek MEP Eva Kaili in the widening investigation of members of the European parliament over alleged corruption, money laundering and other offenses in relation to possible schemes of Qatar, Morocco, NGOs and the FIFA World Cup.

Roberta Metsola had consistently voted for anti-abortion resolutions, and from the beginning of her tenure, she faced questions over her opposition to abortion, which is legal in every EU member state, except Malta and Poland.

Roberta Metsola has called for strengthening the powers of the European Parliament.