The 720 Members of the European Parliament will be led by Roberta Metsola for the next two years and a half.
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00:00Roberta Mezzola has been re-elected by absolute majority as president of the European Parliament
00:06during the opening session of the new term.
00:08The Maltese politician who had 562 votes in favor will represent the institution for the
00:14next two and a half years.
00:16This last mandate we have learnt that the future is anything but predictable.
00:22But come what may, I will keep working with all of you to face the tests when they do
00:30One by one, the MEPs cast their votes to the ballots placed in the corners of the hemicycle.
00:35Mezzola, member of the EPP, has been able to build a consensus in a difficult time for
00:41the parliament and the initial discrepancies over her candidacy, like her position on abortion,
00:46have been diluted.
00:47But she will have to focus on reconstructing the damage caused by the corruption scandal
00:52known as Qatargate.
00:54Mezzola brawled in some reforms, but for several MEPs, they are not enough.
01:00There were issues that had to be tackled about transparency, the risk of interferences and
01:06of corruption, and there were steps taken by Mezzola that we supported, others that
01:11still need to be taken and that we will need to push for in the new mandate so that we
01:17are sure that we are protected from the risk of foreign interferences and the corruption
01:24risks that are everywhere in institutions and the parliament needs to be fully defended
01:29from this risk.
01:30She had only one opponent, the newly elected MEP from the left, Irene Montero, the former
01:36Spanish minister who ran symbolically, had 61 votes.
01:41After this election, the new European Parliament will start working with the first big task
01:44in mind, the election of the President of the European Commission on Thursday.
01:49The 10th term has 54% new MEPs and for the first time, it has reduced the number of women
01:55elected to 39%.
01:57It has 8 political groups, one more than in the past 5 years.