For a few short days it looked possible that European Parliament President Roberta Metsola would switch the crowded corridors of the WEISS building to the ambience of Auberge de Castille.
National elections are approaching fast in Malta (March 2027) and for many reasons, Roberta Metsola seemed to be the best choice for the Nationalist Party to face current Prime Minister Robert Abela.
Right now, the Labour Party is well ahead of Metsola’s PN (51.6 percent vs 42.8 percent, though some polls put the difference even higher at 14 points), thus the party is in dire need of someone, who was “accepted by most factions within the party, her track record and policies have been resounding”.
Metsola is popular with the voters, as well – though she lost a significant portion of her supporters lately: now about 28 percent of all Maltese voters would love to see her at the most important political position of the country, down from 33 percent in October 2023.
Angering many within the party, on June 14 Metsola announced that she was not running for the post of PN leader as she ‘couldn’t abandon’ her role as EP president. She said, ‘Over the past days I tried to find a formula through which I can help the Party in the best possible way, while also fulfilling my duty responsibly as President of the European Parliament, a commitment I cannot abandon halfway’ … ‘I’m more than willing than ever to support the new Leader in any way and role where I am called to serve, so that we strengthen the party, win the election, and save our country’.
Metsola might have adhered to the old wisdom of ‘a bird in the hand is better than two birds in the bush’, but maybe other factors were at play, as well.
Though Metsola (and her fanbase) like to emphasize her role in reforming Parliament’s anti-corruption procedures, the two greatest scandals of the institution happened during her tenure. (Coinciding with the sudden drop of her popularity.)
Both Qatargate and Huaweigate rocked the EU’s supposedly most democratic institution – and both could have been avoided if Metsola (and the EPP behind her) had been doing more than simply paying lip service to the fight against corruption.
After Huaweigate, Metsola tried damage control by declaring that she couldn’t ‘allow allegations against a few individuals to tarnish the work of hundreds of others’ – but nothing significant was done except for the suspension of Huawei lobbyists’s access to the Parliament’s premises. Furthermore, she pointed at the reforms implemented after the 2022 Qatargate, claiming that those measures greatly enhanced the Parliament’s ability to detect such issues more promptly.
More scandals are to follow without doubt since most initiatives are accepted only in a watered-down version and also, because the EPP actively hindered the establishment of a new control-slash-ethics body.
If that wouldn’t have been enough, Metsola’s own fame was tarnished as well when journalists exposed her husband’s lobbyist activity. Ukko Metsola is/was the top EU lobbyist for Royal Caribbean Group at the same time as the institution led by his wife tried to implement green reforms affecting the sector. Something that was apparently not against the chamber’s freshly established conflict-of-interest rules.
Thus, the Parliament’s anti-corruption measures are robust – as long as Roberta Metsola safeguards them with her presence, smoothing out differences before they could erupt.
No wonder the EPP is happy to see her sticking to the post.
MPs of the Nationalist Party aren’t this enthusiastic. Some claim that Metsola ‘snubbed the party in its hour of need’, others went even further, classifying her step as ‘betrayal’.
Something Metsola is well aware of, as she apologized in advance, still chose her ‘global responsibilities’ instead of her homeland.
Apparently, the EPP needs her more (to hold the European Parliament’s fictional leash) than the Nationalist Party.
