Claudette Abela Baldacchino is a thirty-five-year-old graduate in Social Policy hailing from Qrendi of which she is presently the Deputy Mayor. Ms Abela Baldacchino is Vice-President of the Malta Local Councils Association and has, for the past four years, served as a Member of the Community of the Regions.

Within the COR, Ms Abela Baldacchino has served as rapporteur with respect to a number of issues concerning Social Europe.

Currently, Ms Abela Baldacchino also serves as the Vice-President of the Socialist Group within the Congress for Local and Regional Authorities of the Council of Europe.

A journalist with the Labour Party's newsroom, she is the youngest of the four female candidates being put forward by the Labour Party for the 2009 European Parliament Elections.

Believing that the economy is there for the service of the people and not vice-versa, Ms Abela Baldacchino is campaigning for a Social Europe, one in which it is people - not money - that matters.

At the same time, she believes that, us Maltese and Gozitans alike should aspire to have a Stronger Voice in Europe, claiming that for far too long we have allowed faceless bureaucrats in Brussels to take decisions behind our collective backs.

For Claudette Abela Baldacchino it is imperative that we demand a greater degree of transparency and accountability because every decision, from the big policy plans to the smallest of regulations, affects our lives directly. Brussels can no longer remain out of the people's reach.