Roberta Metsola (; née Tedesco Triccas; born 18 January 1979) is a Maltese politician. A member of Malta's Nationalist Party (PN) and the European People's Party (EPP), she has been serving as president of the European Parliament since January 2022.
Metsola was first elected to as a member of the European Parliament (MEP) in 2013, and became the First Vice-President of the European Parliament in November 2020. Following the death of the incumbent president David Sassoli, Metsola was elected as president of the European Parliament on 18 January 2022, becoming the youngest ever president, the first Maltese person to hold the office, and the first female president since 2002.
Biography
The Tedesco Triccas family stems from Swieqi, near St. Julian's, Malta, and she grew up with her father Geoffrey (son of Emmanuel Tedesco and Helen Triccas Dimech), her mother Rita (daughter of Carmelo Bezzina and Francesca Briffa), and her two sisters, Ann and Lisa, in Gżira. She studied at St Joseph School in Sliema, St Aloysius' College sixth form, 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.
Tedesco Triccas and her Finnish husband Ukko Metsola (National Coalition Party) met in 1999 and married in Rabat, Malta, on 1 October 2005. Together, they have four sons: Luca Matias (born 2007), Alec Emil (born 2008), Marc (born 2012), and Kristian (born 2016). As members of the European People's Party (EPP), they both ran for the 2009 European Parliament election, becoming the first married couple to run in the same European Parliament election from two different member states.
Tedesco Triccas has been active since youth within Malta's Nationalist Party (PN), serving within the party's international secretariat and volunteering with the PN's election arm ELCOM. In her student years, she formed part of the SDM (Studenti Demokristjani Maltin), KNZ (The National Youth Council), and MŻPN (Moviment Żgħażagħ Partit Nazzjonalista), before being elected as Secretary General of the European Democrat Students (EDS), the student branch of the EPP, as well as to posts within the European Youth Forum (YFJ).
In 2002, at the age of 23, Tedesco Triccas was elected as one of the two vice-presidents of the executive board of the Youth Convention on the Future of Europe. The following year, she actively campaigned with the PN for a Yes vote in the 2003 Maltese European Union membership referendum. Following her engagement in the European Union referendum campaign, the 25-year-old Tedesco Triccas was encouraged, by Malta's then prime minister Lawrence Gonzi, to run for the 2004 European Parlaiment election in Malta as a candidate for the PN. She was not elected. In October 2004, she joined the Permanent Representation of Malta to the EU in Brussels, headed by Richard Cachia Caruana, where she worked for eight years as legal and judicial cooperation attaché, also participating for Malta in the negotiations of the Lisbon Treaty and working on files like the set-up of the European Asylum Support Office in Malta.
Metsola ran again for the 2009 European Parliament election in Malta for the PN, without being elected. In 2013–2014, she briefly served as legal advisor to the High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton.
Member of the European Parliament
On 24 April 2013, 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 (MEPs). In the European Parliament, she sits as a member of the European People's Party Group (EPP).
Following her re-election at the 2014 European Parliament election in Malta, Metsola was elected as a vice-chair of the Committee on Petitions (PETI) in July 2014. In addition, she served as a member of a number of committees and delegations. She also joined the parliamentary intergroup on children's rights. Metsola was further re-elected at the 2019 European Parliament election in Malta; in this legislature, she closely followed the party line, voting together with the EPP delegation in over 90% of the cases.