Prime Minister Robert Abela has opened the door for his predecessor Joseph Muscat to contest the upcoming European Parliament elections.

“Joseph Muscat must make his own considerations about whether he should be a candidate for the Labour Party or not,” Abela said in an interview to be published in full on Saturday with Andrew Azzopardi on RTK 103.

“But if his answer is yes, why should I say no to him?”

Abela also said that talk of a strained relationship between him and Muscat were false: “All those who are trying to shove obstacles between us, those obstacles aren’t there.”

The statement came hours after Muscat himself said he wouldn’t rule out standing as an MEP candidate for the Labour Party in the elections next June.

Speaking to MaltaToday earlier in the day, Muscat said that a post by his friend Manuel Cuschieri asking whether Muscat should contest had caught him off guard. “This is not a decision that is to be taken in a small amount of time because of a few Facebook messages.”

Saying that his focus was “elsewhere” Muscat did not rule out the possibility. “I don’t exclude it like I do not exclude dying tonight,” he teased.

However, he added: “I cannot ignore the people.” A return to the European Parliament was “not a priority”, he said but something he “will think about.”

Muscat resigned as Prime Minister in January 2020 following a political crisis triggered by the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, subsequent arrests, and implications surrounding some of those in his office.

He was an MEP between 2004 and 2008 before he resigned the post to take on the Labour Party leadership.

The Labour Party currently has six candidates approved to contest June's elections: incumbent Alex Agius Saliba, Steve Ellul, Clint Azzopardi Flores, Jesmond Bonello, Marija Sara Vella Gafa, and Daniel Attard.  Current MEPs Alfred Sant and Josianne Cutajar will not be contesting, while Cyrus Engerer is yet to make any statements as to whether he will contest or not.