On Tuesday 20 October 2026, Iratxe García Pérez was re-elected by acclamation as president of the Socialists and Democrats group in the European Parliament, for the next two and a half years. The notice is from the S&D group. This is the group presidency, not the presidency of the European Parliament.

With the renewed mandate, S&D calls her the longest-serving president in the group’s history. S&D remains the second-largest political group in the European Parliament. Acclamation is not a published roll-call, unlike Manfred Weber’s same-day re-election at the EPP.

After the vote, García said the re-election “is not mine alone” and called it a shared mandate at a hard moment. She tied European sovereignty to household bills: heating without fear of the cost, and housing that young people can afford. She listed housing, quality jobs, energy and the digital transition as priorities, plus the Green Deal and international law.

She called for a “truly pro-European majority” committed to democracy, social rights, environmental protection and the rule of law. She thanked the group for its trust. Those are remarks after the vote, not a law and not a coalition pact signed on Tuesday.

EFE, carried by swissinfo, says that on the same day Manfred Weber (EPP), Valérie Hayer (Renew) and Jordan Bardella (Patriots for Europe) also kept their group posts, the last with Kinga Gál as co-president. Those are parallel reconfirmations, not one package and not the election of the Parliament’s president.

García also said on Tuesday that support for a third term for Roberta Metsola as Parliament president should come with a public political agreement, so the EPP does not negotiate key laws with the far right. That is a condition she asked for, not a Metsola vote held today.

Weber, quoted by EFE, did not commit to such a document and pointed to a car-industry file the three groups had negotiated “in the centre”. Weber’s figures (164 in favour, 11 against, 8 abstentions) are the EPP’s, not S&D’s.

The S&D re-election is not the Commission presidency, not a Romanian cabinet story, and it does not replace a thin JavaScript dump. The closed fact remains the 20 October acclamation, for 2.5 years, as group president.

Image: Sebastian Wallroth, European Parliament hemicycle, Strasbourg, 16 August 2023, CC BY 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; archive, not the S&D acclamation of 20 October 2026.

Sources consulted: S&D leader, Iratxe Garcia: A shared, renewed mandate to change peoples lives; European Parliament group leaders reconfirmed for the second half of the term - EFE / swissinfo.