The new session of parliament will open on May 24, the government announced after a Cabinet meeting yesterday.
It will be the 10th parliament since independence.
The final composition of parliament will be known on Thursday when casual elections will be held to fill seven seats vacated by candidates elected from two districts.
In terms of the constitution, the government's five-year term starts from the date when parliament first meets. The first sitting has to be held within two months after the official announcement of the general election result.
No announcement has been made yet on who will serve as Speaker and Deputy Speaker, and informed sources said that the government is expected to have contacts on the matter with the opposition.
The Speaker may be a serving MP who is not a minister or parliamentary secretary, or a person nominated from outside the House.
Anton Tabone, who remains Speaker until the new session is convened, was also elected as an MP at the general election. Should he stay on as Speaker while retaining his seat, he will lose his original vote as an MP and will only have a casting vote, effectively reducing the government majority to four in the 65-member chamber.
The last Speaker who was also an MP was Daniel Micallef, in the mid-1980s.
The deputy speaker, on the other hand, has to be an MP, and does not lose his original vote while presiding the House. He has a casting vote in case of a tie.
Nationalist MP Michael Bonnici, who was deputy speaker in the last legislature, failed to get re-elected on April 12.
In the 1992-96 legislature the Labour opposition had accepted to nominate one of its own MPs to the post, and Notary Charles Mangion served until he resigned shortly before the debate on VAT legislation in 1994. The opposition subsequently refused to nominate another Labour MP to the post.
In the 1996-98 legislature Mr Bonnici served as deputy speaker after being nominated by the then Nationalist opposition, and he retained the post when the Labour opposition in 1998 refused an invitation to nominate one of its own MPs.
Nationalist MP Carmelo Mifsud Bonnici, who served as chairman of committees in the last legislature, is expected to be replaced since he is now a parliamentary secretary.
The main item of the May 24 sitting will be an address to the House by President Guido de Marco in which he will outline the government's plans for the legislature. It will be a special moment for Prof. de Marco, who last addressed the House when he resigned to assume the presidency. His son, Mario, will be among the MPs taking their seat for the first time.
The sitting will start with the reading of the election results by the Clerk of the House and the swearing in of the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker, the prime minister, the leader of the opposition, and MPs in alphabetical order.
At the end of the sitting, the youngest MP on the government side will move a motion to thank the President for his address.
The House is expected to start meeting regularly on May 26, with the most important item on its agenda before the summer being the ratification of the EU accession treaty.
Traditionally, Mass of the Holy Spirit will be held immediately before parliament convenes.