Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/163731
13 Interview maltatoday, SUNDAY, 1 SEPTEMBER 2013 ed crisis states – a question rarely posed to aspiring MEPs but which has great relevance in debates on the future of Europe. Comodini Cachia emerges as a very cautious federalist. "I would love to see a better concerted effort for more cooperation which could possibly in the future lead to a federal Europe, but not necessarily at the moment. I think that people are quite happy with the current balance between EU competences and national competences. To have a federal Europe you need a lot of public support." May's elections will not be the first electoral appointment for the 40-year-old candidate. Despite not being elected back in March 2013 and seeing her party trounced at the polls, she still describes her political baptism by fire as a "marvellous experience." She won 846 votes in her first outing, even surpassing seasoned candidates like MEP David Casa, who contested the sixth district. "I did not have enormous expectations…. When after the election someone told me that I had got more first count votes than some of the MPs who were actually elected in parliament, I replied 'Really?' I did not even think of checking that out. " But the election was a devastating blow for the PN, trounced by an unprecedented 36,000-vote margin. "It was a very big blow. But the present leadership is working through it, very strategically… for in order to recover you have to first set your house in order. What was really damaging was that certain aspects of our own internal affairs were not in order." Simon Busuttil, who has still not left his mark as the new PN leader, has been busy handling matters internally, she says. "People out there may have the impression that nothing is being done. But that could be because we are embarking on first putting out house in order. When you are putting the house in order it is an internal exercise. I am sure that once the restructuring process is completed you will see the changes." In the past two elections the party lacked an overriding battle cry like democracy or EU membership. By the last election it was very difficult to gauge what the PN actually stood for. So what does the PN stand for Therese Comodini Cachia Age: 40 Family: married to Vladimiro and has a daughter, Laura Occupation: lawyer managing her own firm at TCC Advocates, specialises in Human Rights, Constitutional and Administrative Law, lecturer at the Faculty of Laws, University of Malta, visiting lecturer at the Europa-Viadrina University, Germany now? "The party did not project its own values and principles. Now there is no major event, although this could change due to what is happening in Egypt and Syria. But we need to push forward the values and principles we stand for. We need to definitely explain what these values and principles mean to people in their own life." What are these core values? "One of the most amazing values of the PN is that whatever we do, we try to keep the individual at the centre of our policies." But she admits that this is not easy, considering that there are so many individual needs and so many groups that have their own way of life. This is why, according to Comodini Cachia, the PN needs to have a picture of Maltese society and formulate policies according to its needs. Comodini Cachia turns away from traditional politics, based on fixed identities like social class, without ignoring the disadvantages faced by lower income groups and realities like precarious working conditions – lamenting her own government's failure to enforce the laws it enacted over the past years. "Society has changed and people today have multiple identities. In one family one can find a businessminded investor, a professional and a manual worker living under the same roof…. Moreover people today identify with issues. That is why the PN needs to understand how Maltese society is changing." PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS MANGION MEP candidate Therese Comodini Cachia believes the big migration 'crisis' is being constructed as a backdrop to next year's European elections. As a Nationalist candidate, will she suffer the cost of her principled stance?