The Nationalist Party’s executive council on Thursday approved David Agius’s candidature for the European Parliament elections.

Agius will now be contesting the EP elections together with MEPs Roberta Metsola and David Casa and Peter Agius, who was approved as a candidate earlier this year.

The PN is attempting to regain the third European Parliament seat that it lost in the 2019 election.

In that election, the Labour Party won 54.2% of the vote, with 141,267 votes. The PN got 98,611, equivalent to 37.9% – its worst-ever showing at the polls.

The Labour Party won four of the six seats up for grabs – Miriam Dalli, Alfred Sant, Alex Agius Saliba and Josianne Cutajar. Dalli later resigned after winning a seat in the national parliament.  She was replaced by Cyrus Engerer.

The other two seats went to Metsola and Casa.

Agius was elected to Parliament for the first time in 2003 and has been an MP since.

He is currerntly deputy speaker and the PN’s spokesman for social policy.

He served as deputy leader of the party between 2017 and 2022 and earlier as a whip.