Maltese to be vice-president of EU economic, social committee

Anna Maria Darmanin, a member of the European Economic and Social Committee for the past six years, is today expected to be elected to the prestigious post of vice-president in what would be the highest ever elected position to be attained by a Maltese citizen in an EU body since Malta joined in 2004.

The committee has two vice-presidents.

Ms Darmanin represents the Union Ħaddiema Magħqudin on the committee and she was recently selected by the EESC workers’ group as its sole candidate for the post. The election will be held during the inaugural plenary session of the new five-year EESC mandate.

“It has been an uphill struggle to get to this post and being from Malta in the EESC was not an advantage,” Ms Darmanin admitted yesterday.

“Coming from the smallest delegation and from a small country does not help the cause when attempting to be elected in such a post. Generally, the bigger delegations have more advantage because they represent larger organisations in their member states.”

She said her age, 39, also worked against her as members of the EESC were generally older. “However, what was to my advantage was the fact that during the last six years I have proven myself in my work and also had some of the larger countries supporting my candidature,” a visibly satisfied Ms Darmanin said.

She will serve as vice-president for the next two and a half years.

The EESC is a consultative body of the EU, tasked with giving the European Commission, the European Parliament and EU Council the viewpoints of employees, employers and various other interest groups on how they might be affected by EU legislation. The committee comprises 344 members nominated by the 27 member states.

Malta has the smallest delegation with just five members. The biggest delegations – Germany, France, Italy and the UK, have 24 members each while other small member states, such as Cyprus and Luxembourg, have a six-member delegation.

Apart from Ms Darmanin, the Maltese delegation includes Michael Parnis (the General Workers’ Union), Stefano Mallia (Malta Chamber of Commerce, Enterprise and Industry), Vince Farrugia (Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises – GRTU) and Grace Attard (National Council of Women).

The other vice-president is expected to be Jacek Krawczyk from Poland and the new president of the EESC, Staffan Nilsson, hails from Sweden.

Ms Darmanin will be primarily responsible for the communication department of the EESC and will see her participation almost translate into a full-time job in Brussels.

“My role would be to take responsibility of the communication strategy of the EESC. I will also be part of the Interinstitutional Group of Information (IGI), which is composed of the different members of EU institutions responsible for communication on an institutional level, hence the vice-president of the Commission and of Parliament responsible for communication and also the EU Council presidency.”

Ms Darmanin said that during her mandate she will be focusing particularly on the European Citizens’ Initiative, a new tool provided by the Lisbon Treaty enabling one million citizens, nationals of a significant number of member states, to call directly on the European Commission to bring forward an initiative of interest to them in an area of EU competence.