Alex Agius Saliba Elected As Vice-President Of EP Socialists And Democrats Group
Maltese MEP Alex Agius Saliba has been announced as one of nine new vice-presidents for the Social and Democrats Group in the European Parliament earlier Wednesday afternoon.
Receiving 85% votes in favour from fellow MEPs, Agius Saliba will join the second-half of the S&D’s 2019-2024 legislature. He is the second Maltese MEP to hold the position of vice-president within the S&D group after Miriam Dalli, who returned to Malta in October 2020 to resume politics locally, becoming Minister for Energy, Enterprise and Sustainable Development later that year.
S&D President Iratxe García Pérez took to Twitter to congratulate all nine vice-presidents. “Together we will work to build the Europe we want based on our common progressive values. More social, more feminist and more sustainable.”
In a post on Facebook, Agius Saliba thanked his colleagues and remarked “I’m honoured to be part of the team leading the European Parliament’s second largest political group.”
Alex Agius Saliba originally assumed office as MEP in July 2019, and has since been named as one of the 20 MEPs to watch during 2020 by Politico Europe, helmed discussion on the S&D resolution for universal chargers, and was appointed as the rapporteur for the Digital Services Act by the EP’s Consumer Protection Committee. The latter proposal aims to hold social media giants like Facebook and TikTok to account, including the responsibility to forcibly remove illegal content, and a call for more transparency into how their respective content and advertising algorithms work.
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