Journalist Miriam Dalli as well as MPs Joe Sammut and Marlene Farrugia are all expected to be among Labour’s candidates for the 2014 MEP elections, Times of Malta has learnt.

Names are already being mentioned internally as the party gears up for the MEP elections expected to be held in May next year.

Other candidates include Labour’s former leader Alfred Sant, former Sliema councillor Cyrus Engerer, Marlene Mizzi, who has just been elected as an MEP through the casual elections with a very strong showing, and possibly lawyer Ramona Frendo, who featured in Labour’s billboard campaign, according to sources.

General Workers Union general secretary Tony Zarb is also being mentioned within Labour circles as a potential candidate but sources close to Labour’s leadership denied he will be contest.

There are also conflicting views on whether the President’s son, Robert Abela, will stand asa candidate.

Freshly elected MEP Claudette Abela Baldacchino is unlikely to contest again unless she is cleared of the pending fraud charges against her by then.

MEP Joe Cuschieri is likely to re-contest but sources said his colleague John Attard Montalto will call it a day.

Other potential candidates who sources say will give the election a miss are Glenn Bedingfield, who did not get elected last time, and former chairman of Labour’s think-tank Ideat, Aaron Farrugia.

Malta has six seats in the European Parliament, four of which are currently occupied by the PL and two by the Nationalist Party.

The 2014 election will be the first MEP contest to take place with the PN in opposition and a number of heavyweights, such as former ministers, are expected to be fielded.

However, no names are being mentioned by the Nationalist Party yet, which is currently focusing on its leadership contest being held on Saturday.