PN MEP David Casa and former Prime Minister and Labour MEP Alfred Sant are firmly aboard the Brussels ‘gravy train’, having been ranked as the least active of all six Maltese MEPs according to the website mepranking.eu.
MEPs live a largely unscrutinised life in Brussels compared to local MPs. They usually make it a point to send out a press release once a week to reassure the Maltese electorate that they are still alive, but apart from that it is difficult to gauge what they are doing to earn their €8,020.53 per month salary (pre-tax).
The website mepranking.eu measures MEPs’ activity through the amount of speeches they deliver in the EP, the number of roll calls they attend and the number of reports and opinions they present.
Going by these metrics, Mr Casa and Dr Sant are more likely to be found sitting at home rather than in their parliamentary seat. Labour MEPs Marlene Mizzi and Miriam Dalli are the most ‘active’ of the Maltese delegation.
According to data on another website votewatch.eu , Mr Casa is the most loyal to his national party having voted according to the national party line 100% of the time across 225 votes.
By the same measure, Dr Sant is the least loyal to his national party as he has failed to toe the party line during 23 votes, giving him a loyalty score of 91.70%.
PN MEPs Roberta Metsola and Therese Comodini Cachia are 99.60% and 98.58per cent loyal to the national party line.
Labour MEPs Marlene Mizzi and Miriam Dalli are 98.21% and 96.69% loyal respectively.
Ms Mizzi has tabled an impressive 196 questions for the European Commission to answer , followed by Dr Metsola with 163 questions. They are ranked 1st and 2nd out of all 751 MEPs in terms of questions asked in Parliament.
Mr Casa is the least inquisitive of the Maltese bunch having tabled just three questions. Dr Sant has asked the second fewest questions having tabled a total of 17.
In all fairness quantity does not necessarily equate to quality when it comes to the questions asked by MEPs.
One of Ms Mizzi’s 196 questions was on the plight of stray dogs during the Romanian winter.
The European Commission has yet to get back to her about the chilly dogs.