Martin Schulz elected President of the European Parliament

MEPs elected Martin Schulz to be the new European Parliament president with 387 votes in favour out of 670 cast. The 56-year old German MEP will lead the European parliament for two and half years, until the beginning of the next legislature in July 2014.

In a brief address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg Schulz said: "We must grasp the fact that people in Europe have little time for institutional debates because they are too busy worrying about their future, their jobs, their pensions. This Chamber is the place where the interests of the people are defended".

Schulz, former President of the Party of European Socialists, warned that for the first time since it was founded, the failure of the European Union is a "realistic possibility".

"Our interests can no longer be separated from those of our neighbours; on a shared understanding that the EU is not a zero-sum game, in which one person must lose so that another can win. The reverse is true: either we all lose - or we all win. The fundamental basis for this is the Community method. It is not a technocratic concept, but the principle at the heart of everything the European Union stands for," he warned.

Back in 2008 when Labour leader Joseph Muscat contended the elections for the PL's leadership, Shulz had endorsed his candidature and had described him as "a deeply convinced pro-European".