Fenech Adami disguises surname on staff list for Nationalist MEP David Casa

A ‘Michael Fenech’ listed on Nationalist MEP David Casa’s lists of assistants in the European Parliament is none other than Michael Fenech Adami, a PN local councillor who spends most of his time at the Nationalist Party headquarters. 

Fenech Adami put his name – as ‘Michael Fenech’ – to a list of staff members who two weeks ago signed a declaration countering a sworn declaration by one of Casa’s former longstanding aides, in which it was alleged that the MEP had a cocaine problem for a number of years. 

It is unclear as to why Fenech Adami’s full name is not visible on Casa’s European Parliament webpage, newspaper Illum reported on Sunday.

Fenech Adami is the son of former PN prime minister and President emeritus Eddie Fenech Adami, and is brother to former PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami.

MEPs are free to choose their own assistants, but they are barred from working from offices inside their national parties’ general headquarters while claiming expenses for the running of the office from the European Parliament’s expenses. 

Last year, Nationalist MEPs denied any wrongdoing after the Labour Party accused them of incorrectly spending part of their monthly €4,000 general allowances on renting office space at the PN’s headquarters, rather than on local constituency offices. The MEPs replied that the rental agreement was with Media.Link, a company owned by the PN. 

According to EU rules, European funds “may not be used for the direct or indirect funding of other political parties” but the EP had specified in the wake of the ‘ghost office’ saga that MEPs who rent offices from a national political party must do so at market price, to prevent an indirect financing of the political party. 

Casa has also placed his uncle Paul Degabriele, and his brother-in-law Etienne Zammit Guglielmi, on his staff payroll. 

Both men are listed as local assistants in the MEP’s transparency declaration. 

While the European Parliament’s website states that “MEPs may not employ close relatives as assistants”, the implementing measures for the Statute of MEPs bans the recruitment of spouses and non-marital partners, parents, children, brothers or sisters. 

However this apparent ban on “close relatives” does not prevent MEPs to instead employ the spouses of one’s siblings, or a parent’s sibling. “All employees are compliant and in accordance with all employment rules for staff of MEPs. There is no breach of EP rules,” Casa had told MaltaToday when asked to explain the employment of his maternal uncle and sister’s husband. 

Casa claimed that similar allegations were made about “another MEP [which] were shown to be false” - he was referring to MEP Roberta Metsola, whose assistant is also her brother-in-law. 

Casa has published the names of all his Brussels and Malta assistants together with an audited statement of his general expenditure, as part of PN MEPs’ transparency initiative. Only one other Labour MEP does the same.