[WATCH] Rosianne Cutajar returns to Labour’s parliamentary group

Labour MPs have agreed on returning Rosianne Cutajar to the government’s parliamentary group.

The decision was taken during a parliamentary group meeting on Friday afternoon.

Sources who spoke to this newspaper said the decision is expected to be formalised during tonight’s Extraordinary General Conference.

Cutajar's return was confirmed later on Friday by a PL statement noting that the party's parliamentary group and executive had taken the decision to welcome her back into the party.

In a Facebook post, Cutajar said it was a unanimous vote for her return and that she will attend tonight's extraordinary general conference. She said her first mission will be to try and win back voters who turned their backs on the Labour Party at the last MEP election in June.

"I will do my all to spark that flame of enthusiasm in the heart of every Labour supporter so that together and united we continue to work for the good of the country," she said. 

Government insiders who spoke to this newspaper said the decision to discuss Cutajar’s return to the party came as a surprise to a number of MPs present at the meeting.

“We thought we were going to discuss tonight’s proposed statutory changes, but all of a sudden we are discussing Rosianne Cutajar. In my opinion it doesn’t make sense,” an MP who spoke to this newspaper said.

Another Labour MP who spoke to this newspaper said the decision to bring back Cutajar had been decided some time ago, and discussing her return on Friday was unexpected.

Last March Prime Minister Robert Abela had said that for Rosianne Cutajar to return, she had to apologise before re-joining Labour’s parliamentary group.

Asked if she had issued some sort of apology, the MPs said they did not know as she was not present during Friday’s meeting.

Cutajar was forced to resign from the parliamentary group in April 2023 in the wake of mounting criticism over the publication of damning WhatsApp exchanges between Cutajar and murder suspect Yorgen Fenech from 2019.

In one exchange, Cutajar told Fenech she would seek a consultancy with the Institute for Tourism Studies to emulate everyone else, presumably from the PL, who was acting like a pig at the trough.

The consultancy job was slammed by the National Audit Office. An investigation concluded that the consultancy was “illegitimate” and breached regulations.

MaltaToday had reported on how Cutajar's estrangement from the PL had angered a lot of activists with many fearing that the party would be punished by its own voters in Qormi in June's local elections. Cutajar has remained popular in the Qormi constituency.

In 2020 Cutajar resigned her post from parliamentary secretary, less than a year into her government role, pending the outcome of an investigation by the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life. 

MaltaToday had reported that Cutajar and her political aide Charlie Farrugia allegedly claimed some €100,000 in brokers’ fees from a past sale of a €3.1 million Mdina property, to Yorgen Fenech, the magnate who stands accused of mastermining the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia.

Cutajar had denied any business being contracted with Fenech, who had then been a close friend, and that she cut off all contact with him in 2019 once he was charged with masterminding the Caruana Galizia murder.

The ethics investigation was published in 2021.

The exchanges showed that at the same time Cutajar was arguing against a Council of Europe resolution on Malta in which Fenech’s secret Dubai company 17 Black was also flagged, she was receiving money and expensive gifts from him that were never declared.

This was before Fenech was charged with Caruana Galizia’s murder, but after he was outed as owner of 17 Black and its connection to other secret Panama companies owned by former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri.

READ ALSO: Labour delegates today decide whether MPs can run for deputy leader party affairs post