Commissioner next week (unless the date will have to be postponed due to the issue of the Bulgarian nominee).

We all, of course, know Mr Dalli from his many years as a minister here, but the performance he put on surpassed anything we know of Mr Dalli from his past. On the other hand, not having any preconceptions on the issue, this paper’s report was without the waspish comments by other media who yesterday seemed almost disappointed that nothing negative surfaced in the questions put by the MEPs, nor on any personal background. One can thus start to visualise Mr Dalli in his new role.

While Dr Joe Borg, Malta’s first Commissioner, was offered the Fisheries Commission (after a short spell at the extra-EU help commission at the very beginning) it is also a measure of Dr Borg’s success that Malta was then offered this more important role within the Commission, dealing as it does with health issues and with consumer issues. One additional bonus is that this is an area where Malta does not have any special role to play, unlike fisheries where Dr Borg was always caught between enforcing the Commission’s line and remaining sensitive to the special needs of Maltese fishermen.

The rapturous welcome (for that is the word) that Mr Dalli got at the European Parliament is not just because Mr Dalli did his homework well, or because he contacted each and every MEP on the committee and got to hear about their complaints before the session, but also because he has characteristically already taken the stands that the MEPs would have liked him to take. The hard task ahead of him is that now that he has committed so much, he has to deliver.

In some specific issues, which can be analysed in the comments by more EU-savvy journalists in today’s issue (page 5), Mr Dalli finds himself where there is a turf war between commissioners and/or between his own commission team and MEPs. How he manages these issues will require more than just courage, of which he said he has plenty.

On other issues, Mr Dalli held back, unsure or requiring more time to study the complexity of the issue.

There is a sort of asymmetry here: While in the member states, or at least in Malta, it is the government that runs the health service, the EU itself does not run any health system. More: While there is much good in Malta’s health system, there are also some fault-lines, as can be seen by the queues for operations at Mater Dei Hospital. The fact that the EU does not run health systems or hospitals avoids that particular trapdoor.

On the other hand, as we all know, consumer awareness and protection in Malta is well-nigh non-existent but it is quite active on an EU level and even more so in many member states. It would serve Malta (and Mr Dalli too in an informal way) to learn what is being done and to find ways and means how this all-important acquis of the EU (but something that cannot be translated into laws and regulations) can be brought over to Malta and set in motion.

Having said that, Mr Dalli’s job is no sinecure: On the contrary he will have huge pressures not just by member states at conflict with each other (one such issue is the cross-border health care directive, which has been stalled by the opposition of some member states, such as Spain which currently holds the EU presidency) but also from private business interests in the medical or the pharmaceutical sectors. He was quite right in stating he will stand for the interests of consumers and of patients all around the EU: This was very welcome and surely merited the applause of the MEPs in the Committee.

There are issues, such as cloning if not about GMOs, with potentially ethical overtones but Mr Dalli was carefully nuanced in his replies, surely remembering what happened to Rocco Buttiglione. Today’s Europe is a vast continent where people of various beliefs or non-beliefs have to learn to co-exist.

Here’s to wishing Mr Dalli well in his hugely-important role. In the interests of all European consumers and all European patients he must succeed in the task, which is not just of improving healthcare and consumer protection inside the EU but also of making the EU more relevant to its citizens.