Cecchettin, Sassoli, Falcone, and Borsellino. All Italian references in Metsola’s re-taking office

from the correspondent in Strasbourg – The first inaugural speech of Roberta Metsola, who was re-elected today (July 16) President of the European Parliament, is dense. A speech of unity, inclusiveness, and confirmation of the effort to affirm the leadership of the entire EU institution in its highest values, which—as it is easy to note from the words chosen by the Maltese MEP in office since January 2022—deeply delving into recent Italian history and some of its best figures. For the commitment to memory, for the sources of inspiration in daily work, and for the drive to make the European Union a more just and equitable place.

“Two and a half years ago, I was standing here in front of you after my predecessor, David Sassoli, had just passed away,” was Metsola’s first “Italian” reference even before she was elected (but already with the certainty of majority), outlining the priorities of her candidacy. After two and a half years at the helm of the EU Parliament, the former Italian president had passed away on January 11, 2022, just days before Metsola was elected to succeed him. It was precisely the Maltese MEP who gave Sassoli an emotional farewell in the same Strasbourg chamber in which she wanted to dedicate a remembrance to him today: “He was a president who put people’s dignity first. I promised then that I would honour his memory and today I renew that promise,” claimed the number one of the Eurochamber.

Among the strongest passages in Metsola’s speech is one related to gender equality, equal rights, and the social and cultural fight against gender-based violence and femicide. “We cannot leave Europe a better place if too many women still cannot feel part of it; too many women are still being abused, beaten, and killed in our Europe,” and the thought immediately runs to the Europe yet to be built that “Giulia, Pelin, Ana Vanessa, Daphne, and so many other women will never see”. That “Giulia” is Giulia Cecchettin, the 22-year-old biomedical engineering student at the University of Padua whose slaughtered body was found Saturday, Nov. 18, 2023, near Lake Barcis in northern Italy. Victim of femicide by her ex-boyfriend and the “institutional blindness that still lingers to this epidemic on women,” had reported two days later from the Strasbourg hemicycle President Metsola herself, who today promised a better Europe “for them, for all those who could not speak out and for all those who will come after”.

Then there is “the Europe that remembers,” that “learns from the struggles of the past and recognizes the struggle of so many who fought for ideals that we sometimes take for granted,” of those who “believed in a better future and dared to dream”. Metsola recalled the duty to build a Union of which “Adenauer, Mitterand, Wałęsa, Fenech Adami, Havel, Veil, Falcone, Borsellino would be proud.” The two magistrates killed in 1992 by the Mafia have always been a landmark for the EU Parliament’s number one, as well as Alcide De Gasperi, one of the founding fathers of the European project, recalled in a vibrant final passage (read in Italian) of Metsola’s inaugural address: “The tendency to be united is one of the constants of history – Alcide de Gasperi said 70 years ago – We speak, we write, we insist, we leave not an instant to breathe, that Europe remain the topic of the day. I echo his words that we must remember in this legislature.” Thus begins Maltese Metsola’s second term at the helm of the European Parliament, with a somewhat Italian heart and mind.