News

• Roberta Metsola was reelected as the president of the European Parliament.
• She once called for crypto regulation to come when needed without stifling innovation and was president during the passage of the EU's crypto bill, MiCA.

Roberta Metsola, a member of the European Parliament for Malta, was reelected president of the legislature on Tuesday.

She received 562 of the 699 votes available and will hold the position for 2 1/2 years. She became president of the body in January 2022, following the death of her predecessor, and was previously vice president from November 2020. The president represents the parliament in all legal and international matters .

In 2018, as a Maltese MEP, she called for crypto and blockchain regulation when appropriate and without stifling innovation . She was also chosen by her party, the European People’s Party, to formulate their position on EU strategy for blockchain within the Committee of Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs.

During her previous tenure, the EU's wide-ranging crypto rules package, the Markets in Crypto Assets (MiCA) became law . Stablecoin rules from the package recently went into force, while the rest of the rules are expected to apply by the end of the year.

Metsola's influence on policy, however, may be small.

"The EP President role is largely ceremonial/representative and so the role holder has limited input into EU policy processes," Mark Foster, the EU policy lead at the Crypto Council for Innovation, told CoinDesk.

Read more: Elections Across Europe Won't Hinder Bloc's Crypto Ambitions