AMSTERDAM, Netherlands – Centre-right MEP Roberta Metsola cannot have a third term as European Parliament president, according to Stefan Löfven, who presides the pan-European socialist parties.
Speaking at a congress of European centre-left parties in Amsterdam on Friday, Löfven said that Metsola’s centre-right European People’s Party has already agreed a power-sharing arrangement with his political family, which would see the Socialists claim the presidency of the European Parliament for the next 2.5 year term, between 2027 and 2029.
“We have a deal, the deal was made after the [2024 European Parliament] election, and that deal is still valid,” Löfven told reporters on Friday.
Addressing Metsola’s European People’s Party, he said: “If they still want a decent working environment in Brussels, they need to stick to the deal.”
His comments tee up a major political dispute between the two largest political families running the EU’s institutions, ahead of the mid-term point of the five-year political cycle in early 2027.
According to Löfven, Europe’s main political parties have agreed that António Costa, the European Council president, will stay on for two 2.5 year terms and the Parliament’s presidency is split in two halves. Costa’s term, according to the EU treaties, is limited to 2.5 years, but no previous European Council president has not stayed for a full five.
“This is EPP’s responsibility. If I make a deal, you expect me to keep it. That’s the way it works,” Löfven said.
The EPP is likely to challenge the right of the socialists to lead two of the three main EU institutions. The socialists only have three members of the EU’s top table – the European Council – at the moment: Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez, Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen, and Maltese Prime Minister Robert Abela.
Roberta Metsola is yet to publicly declare her interest in staying on as the president of the EU institution she has led since 2022 – but informed speculation, including within her own party, suggests she is gunning for the role, having refused to enter the fray in Malta.
Löfven, a former Swedish prime minister, was re-elected on Friday for a second term as the president of the Party of European Socialists, an umbrella structure that groups together Europe’s centre-left parties. He has led it since late 2022.
The Socialists’ parliamentary group is the second-largest in the European Parliament, but the centre-left has a limited number of European commissioners.
“We have a strong presence, possibly we would have wanted to have even more commissioners,” Löfven told journalists at the congress.
(ew, bms)
