Gonzi, RCC wanted to change rules to placate angry Brussels reporter

The Gonzi administration seriously considered changing public sector employment rules by amending a legal notice in order to accommodate the wife of The Times Brussels-based journalist, Ivan Camilleri, and secure her posting in the permanent representation to the European Union.

Email correspondence seen by MaltaToday between the head of the civil service, Godwin Grima, ambassador Richard Cachia Caruana and even Lawrence Gonzi details clearly the lengths to which the administration  was willing to go in 2009 to prevent Nicolette Camilleri from having to pack up and leave Brussels to spend the mandatory eight months in Malta before being re-posted back to Brussels.

Nicolette Camilleri - whose brother-in-law, Alan Camilleri, was formerly Gonzi's spokesperson - had already been in Cachia Caruana's embassy in Brussels for the maximum term of five years nine months, and was obliged to return to Malta for eight months if her post as technical attaché was to be renewed.

In Malta, Godwin Grima pointed out that having Camilleri stay on as technical attaché in Brussels would require amending the legal notice for fixed-term contracts.

In the email correspondence, Cachia Cachia informed Grima that he had discussed the matter with the prime minister:

"Godwin, I have discussed the matter with the PM. The legal notice should certainly be amended, but it is obvious that we will not be able to do this in time to solve the issue that has arisen over Nicolette Camilleri."

The correspondence shows that Gonzi actually approved a short-term contract so that Nicolette Camilleri could remain employed in the Brussels embassy's legal unit from November 2009 until January 2010 on three specific projects. "PM has authorised the short-term contract. I have asked [name deleted] to prepare the draft," Cachia Caruana informed Grima in October 2009.

But plans turned sour after Camilleri failed to get the job in November 2009 as technical attaché on maritime affairs in the EU permanent representation - coming in fifth out of 19 candidates and last out of those who had actually passed.

Camilleri's husband Ivan - no stranger to the influence of Cachia Caruana - lost no time in making his unhappiness apparent, as attested to in an email by Cachia Caruana to Lawrence Gonzi himself, who received his own angry email from Nicolette Camilleri.

"She spoke to me about this, following an outburst from Ivan... I advised her to write to the Public Service Commission, as is her right," Cachia Caruana told Gonzi.

As it turned out, Cachia Caruana said he was informed that she had performed "very badly in the interview in terms of answers she gave" and that "her attitude vis-à-vis the interviewing panel (held via video conference) was negative".

With the avenue to her technical attaché posting closed, Camilleri still had a fallback position, since she had previously been accepted as a seconded national expert to the European Commission.

In spite of the interventions from Gonzi himself, who accepted to devise a special contract to have Nicolette Camilleri remain in Brussels, it seems there was little gratitude from the Camilleri family. This fact alone was revealed on the personal blog of Nationalist apologist Daphne Caruana Galizia in a rant over her argument with Ivan Camilleri, who confided in her that both he and his wife "didn't vote because his wife didn't get the job she wanted".

"It is particularly ironic that - because Nicolette Camilleri didn't get the exact job she wanted in Brussels but got another one instead - she and Ivan Camilleri went out of their way to punish the very people who made it possible for them to be in Brussels in the first place, with a nice EU passport, and rewarded instead the very same team of people who busted their guts trying to keep us out of the European Union."