MEP aspirant takes the green route

Nationalist Party candidate for the European Parliament elections Roberta Metsola Tedesco Triccas will be driving around in an electric car throughout a "sustainable campaign" launched yesterday.

The candidate, who aspires to be the first Maltese woman MEP - Cyprus is the only other member state without a female representative - also intends to calculate her carbon footprint at the end of her campaign and offset it through a donation for a Nature Trust project to combat climate change.

Her green campaign is also being characterised by the use of recycled paper and contact with environment NGOs in a bid to put her money where her mouth is.

Dr Metsola Tedesco Triccas told her interviewer TV presenter Peppi Azzopardi under a tent at Freedom Square yesterday that she was sceptical about "politicians who say a lot and do nothing." Her aim, she said, was to set an environment-friendly example: "Even if I manage to influence just 50 people, it would be a success."

The 29-year-old mother of two and a lawyer specialising in EU law, underlined her four-year experience in Brussels, where she has been negotiating on legislation that affects Malta.

In keeping with her campaign's slogan, 'In Your Interest', Dr Metsola Tedesco Triccas plans to stay close to the people, meet as many as possible and hear them out in the firm belief that local problems - even minor ones - can be solved in Brussels.

She had contested the last MEP elections in 2004 when she was still a student in Belgium and in five weeks garnered almost 6,000 votes.

Dr Metsola Tedesco Triccas is married to Ukko Metsola from Finland, who is actively involved within the PN's Finnish sister party.