Reference is made to your article entitled Party invitations sent bearing official parliament stamp (TMID, 1 April).

As you rightly point out, Maltese MEPs are entitled to the same standard postage facilities as members of the national parliament. Moreover, as you also confirm in your report, these facilities may be used for both parliamentary and constituency work in order to help us reach out to the public.

This is a long-standing facility that has long been used by all MPs from both sides of parliament and that was also available to MEPs since 2004.

We therefore fail to understand why you suddenly consider it as an “ethically flawed practice”. If anything, considering that MEPs are required to cover the entire country in performing their parliamentary duties, these facilities are rather limited and cannot stretch sufficiently to help us reach out to everyone.

Finally, allow us to point out that you are not correct in stating that envelopes were sent to all registered voters in the 10th district. On the contrary, they were only sent to households of registered PN members. Consequently, your calculation of costs is erroneous.

Simon Busuttil MEP

David Casa MEP