A month after John Dalli’s resignation from the position of EU Commissioner, I believe local political commentators have come to understand that – irrespective of the merits of the case – this episode has given Malta some notorious publicity, which we could very well have done without.

For the benefit of your readers, I would like to state some well-known facts that may help us better understand the situation and abate the controversy on this issue. Mr Dalli is entitled to defend his legal rights and nobody is questioning the exercise of such rights.

The EU is a federalist project of government – created in the period after WW2 as a consequence of the atrocities committed during the war, to eliminate the recurrence of such practices in the future between member states. Over the years, it has adopted a complex system of government, creating three main institutional bodies – the Council, the Commission and the Parliament – to regulate its affairs, apart from the European Court of Justice, which is a judicial safeguard of the well-functioning of the system and the place to which recourse may be effected by a person who contends that his rights have been impinged.

On the Council sit representatives of the governments of the member states, the Parliament is elected by popular suffrage and the Commission is the watchdog and executive of the EU, extending the influence of EU institutions in a federalist manner by the formulating and proposing of Directives that are, to all intents and purposes, the legislation that is adopted EU-wide. In this regard, the role of Commissioner is a very sensitive position, and the persons appointed to this role are deemed to act not in the interests of the member state which nominates them, but in the interests of the population of the EU as a whole.

Each member state retains the competence to regulate at national level the political, economic and social policies its government – elected by democratic election – deems appropriate, with the proviso that matters dealt with at Union or federal level are applicable EU-wide.

Consequently, the success of the EU project itself depends on the efficacy of the people employed by the EU in the various Directorates and at the head of which lies the Commission – which is not only to act, but to be at all times above suspicion.

Mario Mifsud

HAMRUN