Labour MEP Joseph Cuschieri yesterday announced an innovative initiative to assist those in need but which some saw as being calculated to give him a helping hand at next week’s polls.
Addressing a press conference, Mr Cuschieri, who has occupied one of Labour’s four seats in Brussels for the past two-and-a-half years, promised that if re-elected, he would donate half his basic salary to good causes.
That would amount to €3,100 a month and through the initiative, he promised, he would create a charity pot of some €200,000 over his five-year mandate.
The money would be distributed among Maltese charities, poor families and individuals, and voluntary organisations in various fields.
Mr Cuschieri described the initiative as “a concrete way to give back to society” something of what he had managed to achieve, underlining his modest upbringing as a child in a home run by nuns.
This is no electoral gimmick. I invite other candidates to follow suit
MEPs are paid a post-tax basic monthly salary of €6,250 apart from non-taxable daily allowances adding up to some €4,000 extra per month.
They also receive thousands in travel and office allowances which are also non-taxable.
Mr Cuschieri’s move raised eyebrows among other Labour candidates for the European Parliament, who described it as an electoral ploy, but he denied this was a gimmick and invited fellow candidates to follow suit.
“Everyone has a right to an opinion and if they [other candidates] want to call it an electoral gimmick let them say so,” he told Times of Malta when contacted.
“I just wanted to show that I am not contesting the election in order to make pots of money. Now, if there are other candidates who want to copy me let them come forward and join me,” he said.
Sources close to the Labour Party yesterday said that according to internal opinion polls, Mr Cuschieri’s chances of re-election are “slim”.
Mr Cuschieri hit the news just a week before the start of the electoral campaign when he announced on television that he had decided not to contest again, accusing Labour of “manipulation” and of pushing forward other candidates at his expense.
The 46-year-old former MP said he was not prepared “to be on the side of the losers.”
However, just two days later he made a U-turn and submitted his name as a candidate, saying Prime Minister Joseph Muscat had intervened and convinced him to re-think.