The European Commission will be formally accepting Tonio Borg as European Commissioner in the coming days after his nomination was approved last Wednesday by the European Parliament with 386 votes in favour, 281 votes against and 28 abstentions.

Commenting to the media from Brussels, where he participated in the European Council, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said that after the Commission approves Dr Borg, he would be resigning from Parliament next week – a matter assumed to happen between tomorrow and Wednesday. Dr Borg has expressed his wish to make his last parliamentary address but he has yet to decide when that will be, Dr Gonzi said.

Sources said Dr Borg will start his work at the Commission next week and that he will be resigning from Parliament before the budget, which is set for Wednesday.

Meanwhile, next Friday, the PN will elect Dr Borg’s successor as deputy leader. MEP Simon Busuttil and Finance Minister Tonio Fenech are standing for election to fill the now vacant party post.

This process may require a second ballot if no candidate secures a two-thirds majority. From then onwards, trying to establish the way forward is anybody’s guess as there are a number of options the Prime Minister might be mulling over.

Although the budget has been confirmed for 28 November, no announcement has yet been made on the budget debate and the subsequent vote. The usual practice is to have the Leader of the Opposition deliver his speech a week later, in this case on 5 December and the Prime Minister’s reply given two days later, which would be 7 December.

However nothing is cast in stone. Replying to a question made by this newspaper earlier this week, the finance minister said that technically the Prime Minister could reply to Dr Muscat up to a week later. This would mean that the decisive vote, which follows the Prime Minister’s reply, would be taken on Wednesday 12 December. However, given that this would be on the eve of a very important European Council meeting, with Malta’s financial allocation for the years 2014 to 2020 at stake, such a scenario is unlikely.

In the meantime, there is another intriguing aspect of this whole saga as soon as the process to fill Dr Borg’s vacant parliamentary seat starts. If Dr Busuttil is the new deputy leader, it has yet to be established whether he will give up his seat in the European Parliament and be co-opted as an MP. If this were the case, PN candidates Ian Castaldi Paris, Martin Fenech or Michael Asciak would have to renounce running in the casual election, so as to give the party executive a free hand to decide on the matter.

Another option for Dr Busuttil could be to remain on as an MEP, and occupy the deputy leadership post while not serving in the Maltese Parliament, which would be unprecedented for the PN.

If, on the other hand Mr Fenech wins the contest, the process would be more straightforward as there would be a casual election in the eighth district to fill Dr Borg’s parliamentary seat.

In the 2008 general election, Michael Asciak had 564 first count votes, Martin Fenech 399 and Ian Castaldi Paris 317 votes. However, the outcome of the casual election has a degree of uncertainty due to the single transferable vote system.

Be it a co-option or a casual election, this process must be completed in time for the budget vote, as the government cannot afford to have one of its members absent. This might be the reason why the government is holding back from making an announcement on the budget debates, including the vote. Once the time frames are well established an announcement will be made.

The next step would then be to nominate a new foreign affairs minister, possibly the Prime Minister himself, and a deputy prime minister.