Galea grilling a ‘tit-for-tat’ for EPP’s questioning of Czech commissioner
Matthew Vella Outgoing Speaker of the House Louis Galea was on the receiving end of questions by socialist MEPs on Monday, in a game of political tit-for-tat between European Socialists and the European People’s Party (EPP).
Galea, who was questioned over his suitability to be a member of the European Court of Auditors by MEPs in the budgetary control committee, was quizzed about his role in two investigations concerning the lack of financial control in tenders awarded under his stewardship.
Sources have told this newspaper that Galea was given “a hard time” after MEPs from the socialists and democrats group reportedly took umbrage at the line of questioning adopted with Czech commissioner-designate Štefan Füle on his past KGB links, as part of the EP’s approval of the second Barroso Commission.
Füle, a former ambassador to NATO, had earlier been questioned by European People’s Party members on his training at the prominent MGIMO diplomatic institute in Moscow – known for its tight links to the ex-Soviet secret service police – and his membership in the Czechoslovak Communist Party, a prerequisite back then for a career in diplomacy in the Eastern Bloc.
Füle said that while membership in the Communist Party is not something he can be proud of, it was an inevitable part of the reality he lived in – there was no other place to study top-level diplomacy other than Russia.
Socialist MEPs were “annoyed” at what they perceived was the EPP’s failure to honour an unwritten agreement between the two major European parties not to give each side’s candidates a hard time in Commissioner hearings.
“Louis Galea ended up as the ‘victim’ of a game of political tit-for-tat,” a top Labour source told MaltaToday. “After Füle was questioned on his former communist links, information was supplied to a socialist MEP on Galea’s past.”
No Labour MEPs are present on the budgetary control committee, the EP committee that grilled the nominees for the European Court of Auditors.
The same source claimed that Labour MEPs were unaware of the information that had been supplied on Galea.
“Joseph Muscat was adamant not to provide information on Galea’s past to European colleagues… his line of late has been non-confrontational and I doubt he was even interested in tripping Galea up.”
Galea, in hearings before MEPs in the budgetary control committee this week, was questioned on the slew of contracts awarded to his constituents during his time in government, which were the subject of two investigations.
During his 33-minute grilling, Galea had to answer questions about the investigation by the Permanent Commission Against Corruption on the Auxiliary Workers Training Scheme in 1987, and a magisterial inquiry on contracts awarded to people from his electoral district by the Foundation for Tomorrow Schools back in 2004.
The questions were put by the rapporteur on his nomination, socialist MEP Ines Ayala Sander.
Galea reportedly denied any wrongdoing, saying the claims were intended at harming his reputation.
In the case of the Auxiliary Workers Training scheme (AWTS), the Permanent Commission Against Corruption had investigated alleged wrongdoings in the renting out of machinery to the scheme by constituents of Louis Galea’s two electoral districts. According to the Auditor General’s report in 1990, the expenditure of Lm4 million at the AWTS was done without normal financial controls. No details or statistics had been kept for an audit to be carried out on the expenditure of the AWTS or for verifications to be made on how machinery was being rented. When the case went under investigation by the Permanent Commission Against Corruption in 1996, which effectively acquitted Galea of corruption accusations, Dr Tonio Azzopardi, a member of the PCC, presented a minority report in which he expressed doubts of the testimony given by those who rented out machinery to the AWTS.
In the case of the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools, a case instigated on a report by MaltaToday, over 30% of FTS contracts and direct orders over a number of years were heading to constituents in Galea’s two electoral districts. mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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The need to grill Two recent developments have underscored the gulf of difference that separates Malta from the rest of Europe: the first involved the recent hearings before the European Parliament to approve Barroso’s second Commission; the second was last Monday’s ‘grilling’ of Louis Galea by the European Parliament’s budgetary committee.....>>
