When John Dalli resigned from the post of European Commissioner responsible for health and consumer affairs some days ago, few would have thought that the Prime Minister would have turned to his second in command and asked him to move to Brussels.

There were some who suggested that Malta’s new representative should not be a politician; others drew up lists of possible candidates just to increase speculation, while there were those who thought that, with an election coming up shortly, there should be consensus with the Opposition as to whom it should be.

But, as has happened quite often, Dr Lawrence Gonzi took an altogether different path, naming Tonio Borg as Dalli’s successor. He picked a man of experience, a man of great knowledge and political acumen, and a man who can help lift up Malta’s status again after the embarrassment caused by the circumstances surrounding Dalli’s resignation.

Malta’s name is hardly ever mentioned in the international media, but we were in the headlines for the wrong reasons for days because of the EU’s anti-fraud office investigation, and this did not help our international image.

With Dr Borg’s nomination, the Prime Minister has sought to try to start rebuilding our reputation.

The PM is killing two birds with one stone in this respect. On the one hand, he is sacrificing his right-hand man in a bid to give Malta the chance to win back some of the credibility it has lost. I use the word “sacrificing” deliberately, because losing a respectable minister, especially the deputy PM, from a Cabinet that has already had to face so many difficulties in this term, was not ideal on the eve of an election.

But, on the other hand, the PM also saw the John Dalli situation as an opportunity to gain some kudos on the local political front too.

This is because Dr Borg’s nomination has inevitably led to his resignation from the Nationalist Party. Rising above party politics at this stage was the correct thing for Dr Borg to do. As a bonus, his resignation will give the PN the chance to renew itself, at least in part, just weeks before the country goes to vote. It is a chance to raise the spirits of a party that has been hit hard in the last four years, and this in spite of guiding Malta to much greener pastures than other European countries are grazing.

But more on this in the next few weeks – when we know who the contenders for the deputy leadership will be and, most of all, who will end up the winner of this internal race.

What can be questioned at this stage is why the Prime Minister linked Dr Borg’s nomination with the presentation of the budget, which means that the country will have to wait longer than usual for this financial and political exercise to be implemented. Rightly so, some have interpreted this move as another way for the PM to buy more time, seeing that there are doubts on the PN’s majority in Parliament, although nobody seems to be willing to put this to the test. Whether the PN’s procrastination will work in its favour is debatable.

However, what has been more irritating in the last few days were the subtle and not-so-subtle messages that came respectively from the Labour and Alternattiva Demokratika camps regarding Dr Borg’s nomination. 

The PL, after its initial call for a person chosen through consensus, moved on to say that it will support Dr Borg’s nomination, but then its leader Joseph Muscat – in the wake of declarations made by the European Socialist group – said that Dr Borg will be in for a hard time when he is bombarded with questions at the notorious grilling each European commissioner has to face before he or she is accepted.

To me, this means that while the four Labour MEPs will vote in favour of Dr Borg’s appointment, the PL will do little, if anything, to lobby in his favour with their colleagues in the Socialist Group. And the PL’s four votes are few when compared to the overall 188 seats the group has in the European Parliament.

The local Greens went one step further, taking a completely antagonistic stand against Dr Borg, as did their European counterparts. For AD – a handful of fanatics who send more press releases in a week than they have people at their customary Saturday press conference and who have such an inferiority complex that they send the same press call almost every day between Mondays and Fridays, revealing how worried they are that journalists will not turn up – Malta’s image is not important.

With so much at stake for Malta’s standing in the eyes of Europe, there should be overall support for Malta’s nominee. Following what happened in the John Dalli saga and its aftermath – we are still in the early stages of this situation, and it could drag on for a long time – we cannot afford a second huge embarrassment for the country. If Dr Borg’s nomination is rejected, it would be a blow from which it will be hard for Malta to recover, more so considering the position of Foreign Minister that Dr Borg currently holds.

It is a real pity that the Labour Party is passive on this issue while AD is actively working against Dr Borg’s nomination. Both organisations always speak of the national interest, and say that this should come first and foremost. Yet, on this occasion, it seems that the PL does not want to dent its relationships with the European Socialists by trying to influence their colleagues in Dr Borg’s favour and, worse, AD are aggressively advocating his downfall.

A defeat for Dr Borg will be a defeat for the whole of Malta, but Labour and AD don’t care about this.

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