The European Parliament’s Petition Committee on Wednesday resumed its deliberations on a petition submitted by Adrian Mifsud on behalf of the Association of Local Council Executive Secretaries on whether Malta respects the EU law on fixed-term contracts.

Mr Mifsud is claiming that Maltese law does not correctly reflect EU law on fixed-term contracts because it excludes workers in the public sector from the benefits of the law.

The European Commission representative at the meeting informed the Petitions Committee that the Maltese authorities had informed it that a new Legal Notice was published earlier this year in order to rectify the situation. However, he added that the Commission was not yet clear on whether this new Legal Notice had yet entered into force. He added that the new law excluded certain workers and it was not yet clear whether these exclusions were in line with EU law.

MEP Simon Busuttil, who is a member of the Petitions Committee, said that the new Legal Notice was a step forward but that it did indeed exclude certain categories of public-sector workers – possibly even the complainant himself.

Dr Busuttil called on the Commission to investigate the petition further in order to establish whether the exclusion of certain categories of workers was compatible with EU law.

The Commission agreed to examine the exclusions in the new Legal Notice and to report back to the petitions committee with its findings.

The petition was left open pending the outcome of the Commission’s further investigation.