Last updated at 9pm with the PN's reaction below.

Glenn Micallef, who stepped down as the prime minister's head of secretariat last month, is to be nominated as Malta's next European Commissioner, Robert Abela confirmed on Thursday evening.

Replying to questions by journalist Matthew Xuereb at an event organised by the Labour Party, Abela said he did not feel he should nominate any of his ministers. Although they were qualified for the post, he did not believe he should disrupt them in their current work.

This, he observed, would be the first time that a non-politician would be nominated for the post, but he did not think that would work against Micallef. Micallef actually had a lot of experience, having attended Cabinet meetings in the past four years and participated in its decisions, Abela said. 

Micallef has served as a Director General of Malta’s EU Coordination Department. 

Abela had hoped to nominate former deputy prime minister Chris Fearne to the post but those plans were dashed when a court on Wednesday ruled he should stand trial for fraud over the hospitals' scandal.

Micallef, a 34-year-old EU policy expert, had acted as Abela's 'sherpa,' the official responsible for backroom dealing and technical negotiations at EU level.

He was appointed head of secretariat in November 2020, taking over from Clyde Caruana, who was co-opted to parliament and appointed finance minister.

EU countries need to send their nominees to European Commissioner President Ursula von der Leyen by the end of August. In comments to Times of Malta on Wednesday, Abela revealed he would name a new nominee to serve as European Commissioner by the end of the week.

The prime minister is understood to have held a meeting with Micallef in Castille on Wednesday.

Contacted for comment, Micallef would not confirm or deny that he is being considered as Malta's nominee for EU commissioner, saying: "That choice is up to prime minister Abela, and he will need to decide and communicate who will be the nominee when appropriate".

Countries asked to nominate man and woman

In hopes of creating a gender-balanced commission, von der Leyen has also asked each EU country to nominate a man and a woman. However, so far, no country has put forward two candidates.

It is a first for Malta to nominate someone to the role who has not been a serving politician. Malta's current EU commissioner is Helena Dalli, who held several ministerial roles before being nominated in 2019.

Several months ago, Energy Minister Miriam Dalli's name was being mentioned by Labour insiders as being 'best placed' to replace Fearne as EU Commissioner. 

She dismissed the suggestions as "speculation". 

Opposition MPs claimed she would not survive a grilling by MEPs because of her former role as a communications consultant to Konrad Mizzi, who was energy minister at the time of the Electrogas scandal. 

Each country gets one commissioner but before they are appointed, they must go before the European Parliament for a grilling set to take place at the end of September or in early October. 

MEPs can reject a commissioner, which happened in 2019 when the first choices of France, Hungary and Romania were rejected, sending those countries back to the drawing board. 

PN: Abela does not have confidence in his own ministers

In a reaction, the Nationalist Party said Abela's decision to appoint his former chief of staff to become European Commissioner showed his isolation and lack of confidence in his own ministers.

Commissioners, the PN said, were usually appointed from among members of the Cabinet, but Abela's decision also showed that he feared that nominating one of his ministers could cause divisions within his party.   

It was also shameful, the PN said, that the prime minister had not nominated a woman to the position.