Lorenzo Vella has been appointed as the new head of the European Commission Representation in Valletta.
Vella will assume the role as the official representative of the European Commission in Malta following a protracted selection process that was prolonged by concerns in Brussels about the lack of shortlisted female candidates.
Vella, whose career has seen him fill top European affairs roles as well as key civil service positions, currently serves as the Permanent Representative of Malta to the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. Prior to that, he served as deputy Permanent Representative of Malta to the EU in Brussels. He also has experience working within the European Commission’s directorate-general for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.
He also served as chief of staff to Health Minister Chris Fearne, filling that post for just under one year at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, before being posted to Strasbourg as Malta’s Council of Europe representative in May 2021.
The European Commission announced his appointment in a press release on Wednesday in which it also announced that Claudio Colla would be appointed the new head of its regional office in Milan, Italy.
The date of effect of their appointments will be determined later, the Commission said in a statement announcing his appointment.
The Commission has been without a formal representative in Malta for well over a year, following the departure of Elena Grech. The post has since been filled by acting heads, with Vella taking over from the current head of mission Brian Buhagiar.
Work to fill the EC representation post began well over a year ago, but two separate calls – the first an internal one within the commission and the second an inter-institutional one – failed to yield satisfactory candidates.
The post was then opened to external candidates, but the process was held up after the European Commission objected to the four shortlisted candidates all being men.
Women were then added to the shortlist and the final candidates were interviewed by a panel that included European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s chief of staff, sources told Times of Malta.
PN MEP David Casa has raised questions about the process to find an EC head of representation, saying that its protracted nature “raises questions about the integrity of this process”.
It is not the first time that the European Commission has taken its time to fill the top post in Malta: when Martin Bugelli relinquished the post in 2014, it took the Commission until January 2016 to appoint Grech as his full-time replacement.