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Matthew Vella
Labour’s secretary-general Jason Micallef has told MaltaToday he will be dealing with John Attard Montalto’s truancy at the European Parliament once he will have “more evidence”.
Clinical about dealing with one of his party’s most rebellious of MPs, who had contested Alfred Sant’s leadership shortly after the 2003 election loss, Micallef said the matter was an “internal” one.
“I will be dealing it when I will have more evidence about the matter.”
Micallef however said the MLP does take an interest in anybody who represents it, after being told that according to the Brussels registry, Attard Montalto had been attending just 11 per cent of his committee meetings since taking up his seat in June 2004.
He will surely have to compare statements by the Labour MEP whose absence from the attendance registers at the European Parliament committees contrasts sharply with his statements to Labour party members.
Attard Montalto wrote with much aplomb in a Paola MLP club pamphlet in September how he has to stay with his ‘eyes peeled’ for everything that is happening in the industry and tourism committees he is a member of, as they comprise the “two pillars of the Maltese economy.”
Writing in the pamphlet, Attard Montalto said “we have to pay attention that nothing escapes us since we could either miss out on some opportunity, or lose out from what we have already gained… my committees’ principle subjects are industry and tourism, the two pillars of the Maltese economy, and so I have to stay with eyes peeled (irrid noqghod b’seba’ ghajnejn) for whatever is happening.”
As a committee member, Attard Montalto is responsible for shadowing his socialist colleagues by discussing and hammering out proposals from the European Commission and other reports by MEPs before these go to a final vote in the European Parliament.
The 52-year-old MEP has registered the most dismal record of attendance in Brussels out of all five Maltese MEPs, with his main committee – the industry, research and energy committee – having seen the MEP just four times out of 34 meetings over 2004 and 2005.
But Attard Montalto claims he does not sign the committee registers, a practice so far not taken up by his colleagues on the same committees – he says he signs the general register and attends committees just the same.
Unlike Attard Montalto, the 50 or so members and substitute members on the committee, regularly put their names down. The attendance sheet is placed within the committee minutes, which are always approved by MEPs in subsequent meetings.
Attard Montalto has however admitted to not attending his other committee, the transport and tourism committee, for which he is a substitute member. Attard Montalto attended just three meetings out of 16 for the committee he said had been “ill-chosen for Malta” because it discussed issues concerning “railways, canals and road transport which do not concern Malta.”
Attard Montalto called the committee “a waste of time 80 per cent of the time.”
And he also scores low on the subcommittee for human rights, the one Attard Montalto told MaltaToday he enjoyed attending. Attendance records show the MEP never signing in for one of the 11 meetings held.
Little is know of the MEP’s activities in Brussels – he immediately set out on a two-month long honeymoon cruise with his wife Rose and their daughter at the start of the 2004 legislature. Since then, Attard Montalto’s presence in the European Parliament was earmarked by his curious voting pattern on the Working Time Directive, in which the MEP abstained over a proposal universally deemed by all MEPs to be detrimental to Maltese labour demands.
“I want to have more evidence,” party secretary-general Jason Micallef told MaltaToday earlier this week. “However, if you had to take the Maltese parliament, there are many MPs, even from the government’s side, who do not attend because they are attending to other political business elsewhere.”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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