The first Strasbourg plenary for this mandate, which took place from Tuesday July 16 to Friday July 19, brought both confirmations and news for the European institutions.
The European Parliament addressed a comprehensive agenda, voting on almost 100 legislative items. This plenary session, the final one of the ninth legislature for the former MEPs, focused on critical issues such as new fiscal discipline rules, air quality regulations, and Green Deal measures like sustainable packaging and the right to repair electronic devices. Additionally, significant social issues were addressed, including corporate accountability for human rights violations, social protection for digital platform workers, and the EU’s inaugural law against violence towards women.
Then, as the newly elected MEPs took up their new roles in the Parliament, and the re-elected reaffirmed theirs, they were called on to vote on crucial matters for the direction of the 2024-2029 mandate.
The first main event concerned the election of the President of the European Parliament, on Tuesday July 16, which saw two candidates – the outgoing Maltese EP President Roberta Metsola, from the European People’s Party (EPP), and the Spanish MEP Irene Montero, from The Left/GUE. Eventually, the MEPs decided to reconfirm Metsola as President of the European Parliament with an absolute majority of 562 votes. Therefore, Metsola will continue guiding the Parliament until 2027(as the EP President has a mandate of two and a half years), after assuming the role of interim president in the aftermath of the loss of David Sassoli on 11 January 2022.
In addition, on Tuesday, in a secret vote by paper ballot, 11 Vice-Presidents were elected in the first round of voting, and three in the second and final ballot. The vote on Parliament’s Quaestors took place on Wednesday, in two rounds by secret electronic vote. The numerical composition and members of the 20 committees and four subcommittees were also approved, while the elections of chairpersons and vice chairpersons for each committee and subcommittee took place on Tuesday 23 July. This election made the MEPs ready to start their work on the legislative dossiers in Brussels and Strasbourg. The committees with the highest number of MEPs assigned are the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) Committee and the Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee, which include 90 MEPs each.
After formalizing the assignment of individual members of national delegations to various committees and subcommittees in the EU Parliament—both as full members and substitutes- the eight parliamentary groups will have to finalize the lists of their respective coordinators.
The second main event of the plenary concerned the election of the President of the European Commission on 18 July. With 401 votes in a secret ballot, Ursula von der Leyen secured a second mandate. As the EU Parliament is currently made up of 719 MEPs, the needed majority was 360 votes. Von der Leyen emphasised defence, competitiveness, and housing as central themes in her major re-election campaign speech, presenting her five-year plan to the MEPs as the European Commission President.
The voting patterns showed:
- the EPP-S&D-Renew bloc voting together in favour of von der Leyen, as the pro-European alliance in the Parliament;
- the Greens supporting the vote despite von der Leyen’s decreased emphasis on environmental policies.
- the ECR opposing, even with the FDL’s reservations, different to the PiS’s support in 2019. All other factions to the right of the EPP – i.e., the Patriots and Sovereigntists -, publicly criticised von der Leyen’s programme and voted against her as well.
Given the absence of a permanent voting majority or government backing in any parliamentary term, decision-making in the EP has always relied on forming various potential winning coalitions. It’s difficult to predict what will happen next, but it will be important to closely watch the Greens’ behaviour, as their support, despite the electoral defeat, is important to keeping the pro-European bloc in the Parliament as an opposition to the far-right coalition.
