Updated 11.10am
A political battle ahead of next year's European Parliament elections was dragged into the fine print of EU competition rules on Friday, as Peter Agius and Alex Agius Saliba traded barbs.
Agius, an MEP candidate representing the Nationalist Party, published a letter he received from the European Commission saying Agius Saliba's request for a Brussels-led probe into food importers had fallen flat.
In the letter, the Commission said "collusive practices" must be investigated by individual member states' competition authorities, not Brussels.
Agius said that was evidence the Labour MEP had knocked on the wrong door and should have asked the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority to investigate, not the EU Commission.
But Agius Saliba quickly hit back, accusing his political rival of having asked the Commission the wrong thing in an attempt to deceive people.
He said he wanted the Commission to investigate "de facto monopolies" operating within Malta's importation sector, not collusive behaviour. While the latter is the responsibility of member states, the former impacts the single market and is therefore of concern to the EU Commission, he said.
Friday's war of words stems from a letter Agius Saliba wrote to European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen last month, asking for an investigation into alleged anti-trust violations by food importers in Malta.
Alex Agius Saliba and Peter Agius.What Alex Agius Saliba believes
Agius Saliba claimed the country’s size limitations led to the formation of de facto monopolies in several markets and are leading to the formation of artificially high price benchmarks.
This allows a few large operators to exploit the high inflation rate to increase their profits, he charged, while blocking smaller parallel importers from competing.
His claims prompted an angry response from the Chamber of SMEs and accusations from Nationalist Party leader Bernard Grech that the Labour Party was out to "attack" importers.
What Peter Agius believes
Peter Agius had reacted by saying the Labour MEP should have directed his request for an investigation to the MCCAA and the minister responsible for it, Julia Farrugia Portelli.
He followed that up with a letter to the EU Commission, seeking clarification on the issue.
In their reply to Agius, a spokesperson for the commission’s directorate general for competition said that, typically, when collusive practices are limited to one member State, it is up to that member State to address the issue.
“Collusive practices are covered under European Union competition law by Article 101 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (‘TFEU’). This provision prohibits agreements, concerted practices and decisions by associations of undertakings that restrict competition within the internal market,” the spokesperson said.
“In cases where the alleged infringement of Article 101 TFEU is mainly limited to the territory of a single member State, it is usually the national competition authority of that member state which is considered well placed to deal with that case.”
In turn, it would be at the MCCAA’s discretion to decide whether or not to investigate any alleged violations, the reply said.
Issue to be discussed within European Parliament
Agius Saliba said Agius' Friday morning video and letter were out to deceive.
In a nine-minute video published to social media, the Labour MEP said he wanted Brussels to investigate whether de facto monopolies are distorting Maltese markets – and therefore the European Single Market - by effectively blocking parallel importers from competing.
A handful of big importers in Malta control access to 220 international brands, he noted.
“Peter Agius asked the Commission something different – whether it could investigate collusive behaviours,” Agius Saliba said.
“I never mentioned collusion, which is something the local competition regulator is responsible for investigating. No wonder Peter Agius didn’t publish the letter he sent,” the Labour MEP said.
“The Commission could easily reply to his letter, because he was asking something basic. But it has not yet done so to me, because it knows that it cannot say that it can’t investigate,” he said.
Agius Saliba has now taken the issue to the European Parliament’s petitions committee, to force an answer from the EU’s Commission.
The MEP said he has the backing of other MEPs on the matter and has requested the commission reply to his request with urgency.
“The PN’s only intention is not to find a solution [to profiteering] that helps consumers, but rather to protect the big fish,” he said.