A casual election to fill the seats vacated by three members of European Parliament will take place on Wednesday.

The five-day nomination window opens today at 9am and closes at noon on Monday.

EU Affairs Minister Louis Grech, Finance Minister Edward Scicluna and outgoing Nationalist Party deputy leader Simon Busuttil all made it to the Maltese Parliament and so resigned as MEPs.

Front runners to fill in the seats vacated by Mr Grech and Prof. Scicluna are former Sea Malta chairwoman Marlene Mizzi and former Super One journalist and newscaster Claudette Abela Baldacchino.

The former received 17,724 first-count votes and the latter garnered 12,309 first-count votes in the 2009 EP election.

For the Nationalist Party, the likely contender to fill the seat vacated by Dr Busuttil is Roberta Metsola, a lawyer specialising in European law.

She won 5,880 first-count votes in 2009.

Vince Farrugia, director general of the Malta Chamber for Small and Medium Enterprises - GRTU, could also throw his name into the hat as he got 4,056 votes.

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