Roberta Metsola
Roberta Metsola is the President of the European Parliament since January 2022. She was first elected to the European Parliament in 2013, becoming one of Malta’s first female Members of the European Parliament. She was re-elected as an MEP with a record amount of votes topping the list for the Partit Nazzjonalista (PN). In 2017, she became the EPP Group’s Coordinator in the Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs. Professionally, she is a lawyer who has specialised in European law and politics. She was appointed Shadow Minister for Foreign and European Affairs in January 2015.
Roberta served within the Permanent Representation of Malta to the European Union from 2004 to 2012 as Malta’s Legal and Judicial Cooperation Attaché and Head of the Justice and Home Affairs Unit there. Following that, she joined the team of the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Catherine Ashton, as a legal adviser.
She left that role to fill the vacant seat of current Opposition Leader in Malta, Dr Simon Busuttil, as an MEP. In her student years, she was active in various organisations, acting as the Secretary-General for the European Democrat Student organisation between 2002 and 2003.