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Matthew Vella
Malta’s MEPs were pledged with Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s personal support to help them gain representation in the European Parliament committees they applied for, EP aides told MaltaToday.
In a meeting held with the MEPs prior to their departure to Brussels, Gonzi had told Malta’s five MEPs he would assist them in gaining the committee representation they asked for once in Brussels, in the light of the ‘horse-trading’ that would ensue once the MEPs presented their desired choices.
Efforts to seal their desired representation however, have evidently failed. As this newspaper can confirm, it was a tough battle even for the majority Labour MEPs to be awarded suitable representation across different groupings, as well as their own preferred choices.
MEP David Casa (PN-PPE), who applied for a seat in the Foreign Affairs committee, was instead placed in the Economic and Monetary Affairs committee. The other PN MEP, Simon Busuttil, was awarded representation in the committee he applied for, namely the Budget committee, but his substitute choice on fisheries was awarded to David Casa. The PN candidates each have representation on three committees as either members or substitutes.
But it was an even tougher battle for the three MLP-PES MEPs who sought first preference on Industry, Research and Energy committee, the Regional Development committee, and the Employment and Social Affairs committee. The substitutes were Environment, Transport and Tourism, and Internal Market. A third preference was Foreign Affairs.
John Attard Montalto was only awarded his first preference after three days of haggling with the heads of delegations, for which the important Vice-chairmanship of the same Industry committee was awarded to him. Grech and Muscat, who applied for Regional Development and Employment committees respectively, were instead allocated to the Budget, and Economic and Monetary Affairs committees respectively.
Given that both Grech and Simon Busuttil are present on the Budget committee, it was hoped that the MEPs could have cast as wide a net as possible on most of the 20 committees. Casa and Muscat will both be present on the Economic and Monetary Affairs committee.
News of the serious negotiations which saw Malta’s MEPs staunchly battling out their bids for their preferred representation has clashed with previous misconceptions that the country’s MEPs would be ‘free’ to choose their own committees.
The system governing the allocation of committee representation is in fact governed by the D’Hondt system, which is based according to the overall strength and representation of the parliamentary group. The largest groups are the ones that get the most important choices when it assigns committee representations.
Senior officials at the EP told MaltaToday that although MEPs express their preferred choices, “unless they are really prestigious MEPs, they do not have any guarantee, since in each group there are normally more people opting for the most popular committees. It would have been misleading of Malta’s MEPs to say they would pick and choose their committees, as if there weren’t the MEPs from the other 24 countries also lobbying for their preferences.”
matthew@newsworksltd.com
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