Arina Igorevna

As First Vice-President of the European Parliament, Roberta had the following responsibilities:

The First Vice-President of the European Parliament

On 12 November 2020, Roberta Metsola was elected as the First Vice-President of the European Parliament.

It is a tremendous honour to have been elected First Vice-President. I will continue to be a strong voice for European citizens and for Malta and continue to work to build bridges across the political divide.

As First Vice-President of the European Parliament, Roberta had the following responsibilities:

Maltese, European

Roberta always believed that Malta’s place should be as a Member of the European Union. She previously worked for the Permanent Representation of Malta to the European Union. Following this, worked for the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Her Family

Roberta married Ukko Metsola, a Finn, on 1 October 2005. They are the parents of four boys: Luca, Alec, Marc and Kristian.

I am a mother of four boys – the eldest is now a teenager, the youngest is four.

Roberta furthered her studies in European Law at the College of Europe in Bruges. This was coupled with a major milestone in her political career – her first electoral campaign. At the age of 25, while still studying, Roberta contested Malta’s first European Parliament elections. She was not elected.

A girl from the Mediterranean

Roberta was born on 18 January 1979. Daughter of Rita and Geoffrey, eldest of three children. She grew up in the seaside town of Gżira in Malta.

Roberta credits the referendum on Malta’s accession to the European Union as the catalyst for her activism. In 2002, Roberta was appointed as Secretary-General for the European Democrat Student organisation, a role she occupied while reading for a Doctor of Laws course at the University of Malta. She graduated in 2003, the same year Malta decided to join the European Union.

Since 1979, the Parliament has been directly elected every five years by the citizens of the European Union through universal suffrage. Voter turnout in parliamentary elections decreased each time after 1979 until 2019, when voter turnout increased by eight percentage points, and went above 50% for the first time since 1994.[4] The voting age is 18 in all member states except for Malta and Austria, where it is 16, and Greece, where it is 17.[5]

The European Parliament (EP) is one of three legislative branches of the European Union and one of its seven institutions. Together with the Council of the European Union (known as the Council and informally as the Council of Ministers), it adopts European legislation, commonly on the proposal of the European Commission. The Parliament is composed of 705 members (MEPs). It represents the second-largest democratic electorate in the world (after the Parliament of India) and the largest trans-national democratic electorate in the world (375 million eligible voters in 2009).

Today, OECD member countries account for three-fifths of world GDP, three-quarters of world trade, over 90 percent of global official development assistance, half of the world’s energy consumption, and 18 percent of the world’s population. Together with its sister agencies, the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), the OECD helps the United States and its partners reap the benefits and confront the challenges of a global economy by promoting sound economic policies, freer markets, more efficient use of resources, and better innovation through science and technology.

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) is a unique forum where the governments of 37 democracies with market-based economies collaborate to develop policy standards to promote sustainable economic growth. The OECD provides a setting where governments can compare experiences, seek answers to common challenges, identify good practices, and develop high standards for economic policy. For more than 50 years, the OECD has been a reliable source of evidence-based policy analysis and economic data . The United States is working with other members to reinforce transparency, accountability, budget discipline and responsiveness to member priorities at the OECD