Last week I wrote about Jean Claude Juncker’s appeal for member states to nominate more women as commissioners. I warned that if we stick to Karmenu Vella’s nomination, which as predicted we did, we might lose out on an important role and effectively lose influence in Europe.

I said this not because Vella is not competent for the job, (though perhaps a little bit conflicted), but because Juncker had said that if he doesn’t get more female nominees, he would make sure that the existing ones get the most important roles, such as Vice Presidents and Foreign Secretary.

Last week Juncker finally unveiled his portfolio assignments and announced a restructuring of the commission into teams. In the end, he seemed to have been happy with the gender balance in his team because, despite not nominating women, some of the EU’s largest members still got what appear to be incredibly powerful portfolios.

Malta got the Maritime and Fisheries portfolio which has now been amalgamated with the Environment. I’m not sure whether to call this an important role or not because he will not only have to jump through ideological hoops of his own but also get past the people who have been put between him and the top.

From where I stand, environmental issues will most likely be marginalised and whether or not this means that Malta will lose influence in Europe depends on whether we manage to save face or not.

Given that our environmental policies are a mess, given that the government has been doing everything in its power to cajole and enable hunters, and given that for as long as I can remember, our little island has always been one big construction sight of unsightly concrete erections, Vella will certainly have a tough nut to crack. 

It is no secret that both hunting and fishing are major issues here. In both cases – but especially in the case of hunting – we have been defying EU directives for years, and yet Vella will need to convince that he’s all about the protection of the environment, not only in Malta, but in Europe at large.

But because we’ve held this portfolio in the past, most will not question its irony, and Juncker’s presumed logic of putting “Blue” and “Green” growth together is also likely to be swallowed whole. But were we to take our heads out of our parochial and local behinds, we might actually realise that this could be one big joke that Juncker is playing not only on Malta, but on all of Europe.

How far is this man ready to go in order to expose Europe’s hypocrites or, as The Guardian put it, to “call their bluff”?

What Juncker has done with most of the portfolio allocations is either sick, funny or nothing short of genius. In essence, he has grabbed each and every national government by the gonads and told them to put their money where their mouth is. He has put nominees in charge of areas with which, as a nation, they have serious problems – practically throwing the ball back in their court. In this way, when they complain about their pet EU hates, they will have no one else to turn to but themselves.

Britain, for instance, was handed the financial services portfolio making it responsible for financial stability and regulation across Europe. I found this hilarious because the UK has been whining and complaining about Europe’s shortcomings in this area for ever and a day, and now, after years of battling to protect the financial services in the City of London, Cameron suddenly sees his own nominee (a former banking lobbyist, by the way) becoming responsible for regulating financial services in Europe. How he is supposed to do this without showing any partiality towards the City of London is beyond me.

Then there’s France’s Pierre Moscovici. Juncker gave Moscovici the most important economic and monetary job in Europe, which includes supervising the spending and budget policies of member states. Where’s the irony? Until recently, Moscovici was France’s Finance Minister and he failed to get his own budget deficit on track; now, he is not only responsible for enforcing it in his own country, but also in the rest of Europe.

If it weren’t so worrying, the most hilarious ace up Juncker’s sleeve was that of putting Hungary’s nominee in charge of culture, education and the promotion of civic rights. Hungary’s Prime Minister is known to be incredibly authoritarian and has an appalling record when it comes to human rights and freedoms. I can’t imagine how his nominee, Tibor Navracsics, will even get through the tough grilling that’s surely awaiting him next month, let alone successfully promote civic rights across Europe.

And then came Greece. Like us, Greece has been complaining about immigrants crossing over from the Middle East and North Africa for years. Also like us, it has been told off for its lack of human rights monitors and for how it treats immigrants. Like us, it has also been jumping up and down for Europe to lend a helping hand and to burden-share. So what did Juncker do? He put Dimitris Avramopoulos, the conservative Greek Defence Minister, in charge of migration and justice. Hilarious – or maybe not!

With his wicked Game of Thrones, Juncker is (not so indirectly) telling all the whiners and wingers: “if you don’t like it, fix it!”

But will they? Or will they screw up Europe further?