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Matthew Vella
Malta’s Permanent Representative to the EU has brushed off any notion of conflict in his role in the Nationalist Party’s strategy group,
Resuming full participation in the PN’s war-room along with party ideologue Peter Serracino Inglott after an absence of three years, Cachia Caruana responded to MaltaToday’s questions with the same answers he gave in May 2005 when asked about his position on the party’s national executive.
“Mr Cachia Caruana has nothing to add to the responses given then,” a spokesperson in Brussels said, effectively confirming the ambassador’s new role in the strategy group.
Cachia Caruana has been a member of the executive committee since 1999. In 2005, shortly after assuming his role as Malta’s ambassador to the EU, Cachia Caruana stated that “there has never been any element of incompatibility or conflict of interest between being a member of the PN executive committee and any of the posts I have held.”
Following last Sunday’s revelation that he had been recalled to the strategy group, Cachia Caruana was asked by MaltaToday whether he felt his participation undermined the trust he should enjoy as a representative of the Maltese people as a whole, and whether such a partisan role represented a perceived or real conflict of interest.
Richard Cachia Caruana’s presence is expected to bring strategic planning in the core group, and identity problematic niche groups whose concerns need to be addressed for the PN.
He will be part of an eight-member team which comprises Serracino Inglott, an originator of several PN electoral programmes, as well as secretary-general Joe Saliba, information secretary Gordon Pisani, political editor John Zammit, and Cabinet ministers Austin Gatt and Louis Galea.
The eight members were recently seen entering the Girgenti palace, a venue which serves as the PN’s summer residence and which has clouded the distinction between party and state affairs.
Both Cachia Caruana and Serracino Inglott are veterans of the strategy group, having served for six national elections in 1981, 1987, 1992, 1996, 1998 and 2003.
The group was loosely restructured upon Lawrence Gonzi’s election to party leader in 2004, excluding the two heavyweights, and since then the party has lost all local council elections and the 2004 European Parliament elections.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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