Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1435356
8 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 DECEMBER 2021 INTERVIEW We cannot allow immigration to be Last week, the European Peo- ple's Party officially approved your candidature for the role of President of the European Par- liament. First of all: how does it feel to have been successful in your campaign? Right now, I am in the Europe- an Parliament in Strasbourg: it is a day dominated by the news that – with humility – I achieved that success within the European People's Party, after a very long campaign. As you know, I was compet- ing against two colleagues – one from Austria, and the other from the Netherlands – so you could say that this was a battle, an inter- nal discussion, in which the final outcome was far from clear. But now that the result is known – and apart from the personal satisfaction, and all the thanks I owe to the people of Malta and Gozo for all their support – the real work has to begin, to nego- tiate with all the other groups so that the vote can be taken by mid-January. The role itself is a very prestig- ious one: technically, there is no real guarantee that you will be approved, when it comes to the final vote. There is, howev- er, an agreement for a rotating presidency of the European parliament. What is this agree- ment, exactly, and how does it work in practice? More than 'prestigious' – a word which suggests that the role is somehow non-political – the Presidency of the European Par- liament is, and always was, very much a political position. Its pur- pose is to create majorities within the parliament: at committee lev- el; at group level; and also in the plenary. And this is the basis we will be working on, also when it comes to campaigning. For as you rightly said, my ap- proval as EP President is not guaranteed. Nothing is ever guar- anteed, in politics. Decisions are always taken on the basis of nego- tiations; and that is the work that now has to begin. As for the [rotating presiden- cy] agreement: after each MEP election, what happens is that the main groups will reach an agreement over 'who gets what'. In 2019, it was decided that the EPP would take the Commission Presidency (hence the appoint- ment of Ursula von der Leyen); the Socialists took the EP Pres- idency (David Sassoli), and also the EU's High Representative, which is roughly the equivalent of a 'minister for foreign affairs'; while the Liberals took the Pres- idency of the European Council (Charles Michel). At the time, it was decided – as is always the case – that the EP Presidency would change every two and a half years; and that the new President would hail from the group indicated by this agree- ment. So it's there, written in black on white, that the next EP President should be from the Eu- ropean People's Party: the group that I am a member of. Recently, you co-authored a report about threat posed to freedom of speech by SLAPP libel cases. This report propos- es a mechanism whereby such cases can be dismissed by the courts, if there is a clear imbal- ance of resources between the parties concerned. What is the next step, however? How long will it be, before the Commis- sion issues a directive to that effect? By coincidence, I have only just had a meeting with the European Commission Vice President, Ve- ra Jourova, on this very subject. As you are aware, a lot of very in- tensive work has been done this year – on the initiative of the Eu- ropean Parliament, I might add; and no one else. Together with my German colleague from the Socialist group, Tiemo Wölken – and conscious of the need to assemble the largest possible EP majority – we discussed the issue with lawyers, specialists and oth- er experts; as well as journalists from all European countries. That includes MaltaToday, in- cidentally: we held meetings with your colleagues, to find what out what sort of experiences they en- counter in their line of work; and what sort of cases Maltese jour- nalists have to contend with in general. The next step, however, is for the European Commission to come out with a directive. This is something we expect to hap- pen late – hopefully, not too late – next year; because a directive of this nature will always need at least a year, to get negotiated. We hope that it will be an ambi- tious directive: which will, among other things, address the issue you brought up in your question. That is, the pre-emptive dismiss- al of any a case that has been filed for the obvious purpose of either gagging, or financially intimidat- ing, journalists: or preventing them from publishing stories that are intended to uncover the truth. At the same time, however, we made it clear in our report that we are only targeting abusive practices… and not legitimate cases, where people resort to the law-courts because they genu- inely feel they have been libelled, or that their reputation has been sullied. There is a balance that has to be respected here: we are not proposing to completely remove libel cases; but only to ensure that the system is not abused to silence the free press. That is one of the proposals we would like to see enshrined in the Commission's directive. But there are others: for instance, the creation of a specific fund to as- sist small media houses, or indi- vidual journalists, facing this sort of libel threat: especially when it comes to the practice referred to as 'libel shopping'. In other words, when a case is filed in an European Parliament vice-president ROBERTA METSOLA warns that the EU cannot afford to turn a blind eye to human rights abuses: especially when they threaten the security of the EU as a whole Nicole Meilak nmeilak@mediatoday.com.mt