INTERNATIONAL: The European Parliament is widely expected to elect conservative Maltese lawmaker Roberta Metsola as its president on Tuesday, making her the EU assembly's first woman president in 20 years.

Metsola would succeed Italian socialist David Sassoli in the mostly ceremonial role presiding over the 705-member parliament of the European Union, after he died this month at the age of 65.

Sassoli had in any case been due to step down this week as part of a power-sharing deal under which parliament's socialist group would step aside halfway through the assembly's five-year term for a candidate from Metsola's centre-right European People's Party (EPP) grouping.

A current vice-president and candidate from the centre-right EPP group, Metsola benefits from a power-sharing arrangement which means that the other biggest voting blocs in the chamber – the socialists and liberals – have not put forward their own candidates.

Metsola has emphasised her experience as a consensus-builder in a speech before the opening of the secret ballot, also stressing her credentials as an outsider, being a woman from the smallest state in the union.

If she wins, she will become the third woman to hold the post, more than 40 years– famed for legalising abortion in her native France.

The parliament, which adopts and amends legislative proposals and decides on the EU budget, has had only two female presidents, Simone Veil and most recently Nicole Fontaine, both French, since it became a directly elected assembly in 1979.