Julio García/Aquí Europa
Irene Montero will be the candidate of the Left group for the presidency of the European Parliament, although symbolically, since the agreement between the popular, socialists and liberals for the distribution of senior EU positions after the European elections on June 9 leaves the way clear for the popular Maltese Roberta Metsola to repeat half of the legislature.
In the middle of the legislature, a change will occur in which the social democrats will occupy that position. Among the names for that moment is that of the Spanish Iratxe García.
The Left has decided to launch the candidacy of Irene Montero for this Tuesday’s vote, as it already did in the case of Sira Rego in the previous legislature. In the absence of IU, which was left without representation in the European Parliament, because Sumar obtained only three MEPs, and Manu Pineda occupied fourth position, the Podemos MEP has been left with those spaces. Thus, she has also replaced Rego as vice president of the group.
On her social network X, Montero has expressed thanks to her colleagues for their trust in being her candidate for the Presidency of the European Parliament.
The Left has three Spanish delegations. The two MEPs from Podemos, Irene Montero and Isa Serra. On the other hand, Sumar’s candidate, Estrella Galán. The other two members of that list, Vicent Marzà (Compromís) and Jaume Asens (En Comú), are part of Los Verdes/ALE. And also the EH Bildu MEP, Pernando Barrena, while BNG and ERC, who were part of the same candidacy, belong to Los Verdes/ALE.
Candidates for the presidency of Parliament can only be presented by a political group or by one twentieth of the members, that is, 35 MEPs. To be elected, a candidate must obtain an absolute majority of the valid votes cast, that is, at least half plus one.
The vote is secret and blank or null votes are not taken into account when calculating the majority. The election is carried out by a round-robin system – with a maximum of four – until one of the candidates obtains half plus one of the votes cast. In the event that in the first three votes no candidate has obtained the necessary majority, only the two candidates who have received the greatest number of votes will participate in the fourth and final vote.
At the moment, only Montero and Metsola have appeared. The Greens, who are negotiating with Ursula von der Leyen and aspire to be part of the majority this term, are not going to present any candidate for that vote. In 2019 they launched what had been their candidate, Ska Keller.
