All three PN MEPs are of the opinion that the Prime Minister should have learnt from the Toni Abela’s failed grilling and should have consulted the Opposition. They also added that none of them have any intention to disrupt proceedings for the new nominee, former Environment Minister, Leo Brincat, as Dr Joseph Muscat implied.
The Malta Independent contacted MEPs David Casa, Therese Comodini Cachia and Roberta Metsola inquiring whether they intended to help Leo Brincat get through his grilling, or whether they would “try and disrupt,” as the Prime Minister put it during a press conference on 5 May.
The Head of the PN Delegation, MEP David Casa started off by saying that, “Regardless of what people said, we all helped Toni Abela. Anything to the contrary is a lie.” Mr Casa continued that he specifically asked the Prime Minister to at least consult the leader of the Opposition before sending another nominee up, but this never happened.
“This shows arrogance on his part,” said Mr Casa adding that nobody from the PL has officially asked any of the PN MEPs for help.” The EPP member however assured TMI that the PN MEPs will all be glad to help and that they have “no interest in disrupting any processes.”
Mr Casa insisted that, “if the PL is playing with fire and gets burnt, it is not our fault.” This referred to the ‘white block’ incident that kept incessantly and expectedly coming up during Toni Abela’s grilling.
The ‘white block’ incident refers to a recording which had emerged of Dr Abela describing how a PL club leader stumbled upon a barman carving up “a white block", which was interpreted to have been referring to drugs.
Mr Casa advised Dr Brincat to make sure that nothing he has done or will do reflects badly on him because “the European Parliament knows everything.” The MEP pointed out that anyone in the EP has access to global newspapers, including Maltese ones. That being said, however, Mr Casa concluded that, “in the end it all depends on the hearing itself.”
MEP Therese Comodini Cachia started by saying, “The Prime Minister may need to understand, as I am sure he does, that it is a specific Committee that determines the Parliament's approval or disapproval of any person he nominates.”
She then said that she is not a member of that Committee and therefore will not be participating in Dr Brincat’s grilling session adding that she also had no part in Toni Abela’s; and that Dr Brincat will be judged “according to his merits.”
Echoing MEP Casa’s comment about the Prime Minister’s lack of consultation with the Opposition, Dr Comodini Cachia said that “when the Prime Minister nominates persons for such positions without first seeking national consensus he bears full responsibility for the outcome of such process.”
MEP Roberta Metsola reiterated Dr Comodini Cachia’s comment by clarifying that there are no Maltese MEPs who sit on the European Parliament's Budgetary Control Committee “and so none of us will be able to participate in the hearing or vote at this stage.”
She also contributed to the united front by the MEPs in favour of consultation with the Opposition by saying that when it comes to the nomination process, “it would have been a positive development if, after the Toni Abela debacle, the government would have sought the Opposition's views in order to find a unifying candidate for Malta.”
About a distinct lack of any attempt whatsoever to consult the Opposition in any way, the MEP thinks it is a missed opportunity that this did not happen. That being said, Dr Metsola had words of praise for Dr Brincat saying that he has been in politics “long enough to understand how the process works and how difficult it can be.”
Dr Metsola ended by saying that, should Dr Brincat ask for the Opposition's advice on how to best approach his hearing “we will of course give it. But for full disclosure's sake he has not spoken to me yet.”