GUEST POST/What next with Toni Abela’s fiasco?

Sent in by John:

The European Parliament committee vote yesterday is a first phase and not final. On 28th April there will be a vote in the European Parliament plenary session, but even that is not final. In the plenary session, the vote almost always reflects that of the committee, but there have been exceptions. After that, even with a negative vote in the plenary session of the European Parliament, the European Council can still disregard the parliamentary vote and approve the member state’s nominee. That is what happened three years ago with the nominee from Croatia.

In his comments just after the vote, Toni Abela signalledthat he doesn’t want to press on. But Joseph Muscat was obviously on the line insisting that Abela doesn’t commit himself either way until Muscat at least thinks it through amid all the corruption scandals engulfing his government.

The Prime Minister should come clean and say whether he intends to press on with Abela’s nomination despite yesterday’s two-thirds vote against him. That large margin in a secret vote means that Socialist and Green MEPs voted against him. Inez Ayala Sender is a Spanish Socialist and very influential on the Committee which voted yesterday. Another embarrassment beckons in the plenary session, where the vote is not recorded and where, therefore, even Socialist MEPs can tell Joseph Muscat where to shove his “blokka kokaina” nominee.

This process is not just an evaluation of the nominee and, in this case, of Malta’s corruption crisis, but also a tussle between European institutions. But Toni Abela’s performance was by far the worst, and the negative vote against him was also very clear. The Czech nominee, for example, performed badly but was still approved by the Committee.

Joseph Muscat is increasingly regressing into Super One hack mode. What he did when the vote against Abela was announced made this quite evident: he told all his cronies to get into the blame-game and whip up a frenzy of malice against “the Nationalists” while Alfred Sant thanked them for their work.

Joseph Muscat will probably try to pull it off at the European Council level where prime ministers rarely upset one of their fellows and where, anyway, their minds are far off the trifling matter of a nominee to the European Court of Auditors, and more focused on the refugee problem and an impending crisis if Britain votes to leave the EU. But this course of events tarnishes Malta’s name at an even higher level.

A serious Prime Minister would actually nominate a technocrat rather than a politician, make sure he is well briefed by Louis Galea, who performed extremely well in his hearing six years ago today, and his second nominee would have a very easy ride in the committee and the European Parliament, seeing a repentant Prime Minister who actually took note of their initial vote.

Toni Abela need not worry either. He can always be made a magistrate or judge, which would give him ample opportunity to spend time with Wenzu Mintoff other than the trips they often take together.