Maltese politician charged with fraud elected to European Parliament

Centre-left Abela Baldacchino elected MEP despite charges of fraud with EU money.

Claudette Abela Baldacchino of Malta, who was elected to the European Parliament this week, faces criminal charges for alleged fraud involving European Union funding.

Abela Baldacchino was charged last year together with five others for allegedly over-claiming some €96,000 in travel expenses from the European Commission in 2004-07, when they served as local councillors. All six say that they are innocent.

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The alleged fraud was uncovered by the EU’s anti-fraud office, OLAF.

Abela Baldacchino, a member of Malta’s ruling Labour Party, was elected on Wednesday (24 April) together with Marlene Mizzi to replace Labour MEPs Louis Grech and Edward Scicluna, who were elected to national office in Malta in a general election in March.

Also on Wednesday, Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas, from the Nationalist Party, was elected to replace Simon Busuttil as MEP.

The Nationalist Party lost power on 9 March, when Labour was returned to office for the first time in 15 years.

Busuttil slammed the Labour Party in Malta’s parliament on Wednesday after the election result was announced. He said that Abela Baldacchino’s election shamed Malta.

Busuttil’s complaint was taken up by the group of the centre-right European People’s Party, the largest political group in the European Parliament. Manfred Weber, a German MEP who is the EPP group’s vice chairman, said that Abela Baldacchino’s election called into question the judgement of Malta’s Labour Party, which replaced the centre-right Nationalists as the ruling party in March.

“Without prejudging the outcome of the process, and given that she is facing criminal charges, [Abela Baldacchino] should not have been allowed to contest [Wednesday’s] casual election to fill one of the vacant Maltese seats in the European Parliament,” Weber said.

“Her election to the European Parliament means that she will now enjoy Parliamentary immunity and this means that these criminal charges will be frozen unless immunity is waived,” Weber added. He said that this was especially serious because the charges related to the abuse of EU money.

Wednesday’s election took the form of a count of second-preference votes for unelected candidates from the 2009 elections to the European Parliament.