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James Debono
Parliament’s financial problems are partially to blame for the absence of Malta’s MPs in an inter-parliamentary meeting on immigration held in Brussels last week, in a bid by the office of the Speaker to cut mounting costs.
Party whips were asked to choose which inter-parliamentary conferences they were not interested in attending, failing to note that a conference dealing with “freedom, security and justice” concerned the issue of migration.
The increasing number of invitations to participate in international conferences following EU membership has drained the funds at the parliament, which is expected to foot the bill for MPs to attend the conferences.
Richard Cauchi, the clerk of the house, confirmed that he is calling on both sides to find ways to reduce this expense.
But the first attempt to cut on foreign travel has contributed to Malta’s absence from the conference.
On 22 September, ten days before the immigration conference, the office of the Speaker wrote to the two party whips asking them to indicate which of 15 forthcoming conferences they would not be interested in participating.
Labour whip Joe Mizzi claims he was verbally informed this measure was aimed at cutting costs on travel due to diminishing funds.
One of the 15 optional conferences was one dealing with freedom, security and justice that was held on 2 October. The two whips said they were only informed on the generic theme of the conference and had no idea that this conference was to focus on migration.
“The title of the conference was very misleading as it made no reference to immigration,” Nationalist whip Mario Galea said.
To make matters worse, Galea was unable to read the email sent to him by the Speaker’s office as he was observing elections in a remote part of Yemen as part of an EU delegation. “I only managed to read the email when I returned 5 days before the actual conference.”
Joe Mizzi instead did not reply to the email, arguing that the proposed system deprived whips of their authority. Just three days before the migration conference he was contacted by the Speaker’s office, asking him to send a representative.
By that time it was too late to find someone. Mizzi said he can only choose the Opposition’s representative in each conference on the basis of detailed information, which he said was lacking in the email sent on 22 September. “Although I am ready to cooperate to reduce the costs, sending this letter was not the way to solve problems.”
Mizzi claimed that when a Labour government had considered reducing foreign participation due to the costs incurred by Parliament, the PN had threatened to report it to international institutions.
Mario Galea said he does not blame the Speaker’s office, insisting that parliamentary structures are not up to date with the realities of EU membership and that MPs should be full-timers given the increasing load of parliamentary business.
“How can we expect the understaffed Speaker’s office to deal with the large number of invitations, book flights, make hotel reservations and at the same time carry on with normal parliamentary business?”
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
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