Member of the European Parliament Roberta Metsola has been awarded the prestigious ‘MEP of the Year’ award for her work on Justice and Civil Liberties issues in Europe. Dr Metsola was one of three MEPs nominated for the award with the other two MEPs in the category hailing from Germany and Poland – two of the largest EU Member States.
The announcement was made during a ceremony in Brussels this evening. Addressing participants via video-link, Dr Metsola thanked all her MEP colleagues who voted for her. She underlined that cooperation and compromise was essential for the European Parliament to make a real difference in people’s everyday lives. “No MEP and no political group alone could achieve anything by themselves. We cannot be entrenched in our positions and need to continue to work together in the best interests of the people we represent” said Dr Metsola.
Dr Metsola is currently in Washington participating in talks on Justice and Home Affairs issues between a European Parliament delegation and the United States and was therefore unable to attend. Two young Maltese graduates collected the award on her behalf.
Commenting on her award Roberta Metsola said “I try not to give too much importance to these sort of awards and focus on the work ahead. But it is an honour for Malta, for the PN and for me personally to have been given the award. It is always satisfying for your work to be acknowledged and even more so when this comes from other MEPs from across Party lines”.
Roberta Metsola, who was elected in 2013, became one of the first female MEPs from Malta after she replaced Simon Busuttil in the European Parliament. She was then re-elected in 2014 with close to 33,000 first-count votes.
Dr Metsola has been instrumental in a number of key debates in Brussels. In the last year alone, she has been the European Parliament’s Rapporteur on two reports on the European Asylum Support Office (EASO). She has also been intrinsically involved in the debates on terrorism, migration, Libya, TTIP and has pushed for increased support for countries in the Mediterranean. Only last week she took the floor in the European Parliament plenary session to force a debate on the situation in Libya among MEPs, insisting that the EU needs to place Libya at the top of its agenda. She has also been involved in debates on consumer protection issues, data protection and privacy online and campaigns to end mobile phone roaming charges. Dr Metsola was also the EPP Shadow Rapporteur on the European Parliament’s ground-breaking report on Anti-Discrimination and homophobia last year.
Roberta Metsola was elected as the European People’s Party (EPP) Deputy Coordinator of the Committee on Justice, Home Affairs and Civil Liberties. She is Vice-President of the Petitions Committee, a Member of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee and forms part of the Delegation for relations with the United States of America and the Delegation for relations with Australia and New Zealand.
The ‘MEP of the Year’ award is organised by The Parliament Magazine, a Brussels-based publication that focuses on European affairs. MEPs are nominated in different categories and are voted for by other MEPs.
