Who might replace Dalli?
The appointment of a replacement for John Dalli as Malta’s European commissioner starts with the government in Valletta.
In due course, the nominee will have to win the approval of the president of the Commission, have a hearing with the European Parliament and be appointed by the Council of Ministers. But first, Lawrence Gonzi, Malta’s prime minister, has to come up with a plausible candidate. Gonzi has a famously bad relationship with John Dalli, a former rival for his party’s leadership. And although he is unlikely to shed any tears for Dalli, the European commissioner’s resignation has left him with a big political headache.
Gonzi has been prime minister for eight years, but his power has eroded to such a point that his government’s survival now depends on the vote of one former member of his centre-right National Party.
Dalli’s demise also comes with elections looming in 2013 and with opinion polls showing that the opposition Labour Party would trounce the Nationalists.
Although Gonzi once again has within his gift the most powerful international position that is available to a Maltese politician, his freedom to exercise this patronage is limited. He will not want to make a nomination that adds to his domestic political difficulties and further endangers his government’s survival.
One option would be for Gonzi and Joseph Muscat, a former member of the European Parliament who now leads Labour, to find a compromise candidate. However, Maltese politics is commonly described as intensely tribal and it is unlikely that they would reach a cross-party agreement.
Three names are emerging from the centre-right Nationalist camp at present: Richard Cachia Caruana, Tonio Borg and Michael Frendo. Choosing any of those three could deepen Gonzi’s problems.
Borg and Frendo are important to the government’s survival: Borg is deputy prime minister, and Frendo, a former foreign minister, is now the speaker of parliament – and it is only thanks to his casting vote that the government has won some recent battles.
Cachia Caruana was Malta’s permanent representative to the EU for eight years, but a Labour-led vote in parliament forced him from the post in June, for his alleged role in reversing a decision that Malta should pull out of NATO’s Partnership for Peace programme.
Borg would face an additional challenge in a European Parliament hearing. As a prospective commissioner for health, his relatively conservative and vocal position on abortion would probably come under intense scrutiny.
It may be that, to limit the domestic damage, Gonzi will reach deeper down in the party’s ranks.
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